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[00:00.000 --> 00:02.640]  I'm Dave Champion.
[00:02.640 --> 00:10.380]  For months and months and months, I have been doing videos about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19.
[00:10.380 --> 00:16.620]  Today I want to switch up considerably and I want to talk about something that's political
[00:16.620 --> 00:17.620]  in nature.
[00:17.620 --> 00:20.100]  I'm going to give you the theme, which is probably going to rub some people the wrong
[00:20.100 --> 00:25.660]  way and then we'll talk about it from there, and the theme is I want to talk about how
[00:25.660 --> 00:38.340]  to salvage the Republican Party.
[00:38.340 --> 00:43.220]  So let me be clear right off the bat, this has absolutely nothing to do with Donald Trump.
[00:43.220 --> 00:44.820]  Let me explain what I mean by that.
[00:44.820 --> 00:49.780]  We've got a two-party system in this country, especially concerning the federal government,
[00:49.780 --> 00:54.740]  since the Constitution was ratified in 1791 and presumably we're going to be continuing
[00:54.740 --> 00:58.420]  on with the federal government for some period of time under the current Constitution.
[00:58.420 --> 01:05.580]  So when we look at the totality of that time, the incident of Donald Trump being president
[01:05.580 --> 01:07.860]  is a moment in time.
[01:07.860 --> 01:11.780]  It's irrelevant to what I'm talking about because I'm talking about what I perceive
[01:11.780 --> 01:20.380]  to be a structural defect that has been growing over the decades and if not repaired, if that
[01:21.380 --> 01:28.460]  isn't adjusted, it is going to cause perhaps a complete demise of the Republican Party.
[01:28.460 --> 01:32.900]  Do I give a shit about the Republican Party?
[01:32.900 --> 01:34.120]  I don't.
[01:34.120 --> 01:38.500]  Do I give a shit about the Democrat Party?
[01:38.500 --> 01:39.740]  I don't.
[01:39.740 --> 01:45.900]  Actually, I find the two-party system here in the U.S. to be one of the most destructive
[01:45.900 --> 01:48.260]  elements of our political paradigm.
[01:48.260 --> 01:53.300]  That said, the only thing that I can imagine that is worse than the two-party system would
[01:53.300 --> 01:58.020]  be for it to devolve into a one-party system.
[01:58.020 --> 02:00.940]  So you can imagine if the Republican Party were to turn into a ghost of what it once
[02:00.940 --> 02:05.420]  was, which I think is happening right now, but if that were to accelerate, then the only
[02:05.420 --> 02:09.460]  party left is the Democrat Party and I'm not elevating the Democrat Party or the Republican
[02:09.460 --> 02:10.900]  Party above one another.
[02:10.900 --> 02:16.860]  I'm just saying if there is a significant diminishment of the involvement of people
[02:16.860 --> 02:22.700]  in the Republican Party, then the party that's going to become all-controlling and all-powerful
[02:22.700 --> 02:25.380]  in the United States is the Democrat Party.
[02:25.380 --> 02:26.380]  Here's my idea.
[02:26.380 --> 02:30.060]  If we're going to have a two-party system, and I wish we had 17 parties, yeah, that's
[02:30.060 --> 02:34.220]  an arbitrary number, but if there is a benefit to the two-party system, since that's the
[02:34.220 --> 02:39.420]  system we've got, it is the pendulum effect.
[02:39.420 --> 02:43.460]  We go this way for a little while, and then we go back this way for a little while, and
[02:43.460 --> 02:45.260]  then we go this way, and then we go this way.
[02:45.380 --> 02:50.660]  And of course, in my book, the smaller that works, the better, right?
[02:50.660 --> 02:56.340]  If I had my way, if I could be the, I don't know, the small g god of America in the background
[02:56.340 --> 03:01.400]  when nobody knew, I would mandate that the White House and Congress had to be held by
[03:01.400 --> 03:07.580]  two separate parties every single election because that would, on the whole, provide
[03:07.580 --> 03:12.140]  a gridlock when it comes to creating more and more and more and more and more legislation
[03:12.140 --> 03:14.340]  and more and more and more and more spending.
[03:14.420 --> 03:15.820]  Yeah, I'm all about gridlock.
[03:15.820 --> 03:21.860]  All right, so why do I think that the Republican Party is in crisis?
[03:21.860 --> 03:23.660]  And again, nothing to do with Donald Trump.
[03:23.660 --> 03:28.740]  For a long time in the United States, there have been more registered Democrats than Republicans.
[03:28.740 --> 03:31.100]  It's not completely lopsided, but there's more.
[03:31.100 --> 03:37.100]  I think the last time I looked, it was 53% of registered voters had registered as Democrat.
[03:37.100 --> 03:43.440]  So we know that just numerically, there are more Democrats than Republicans.
[03:43.540 --> 03:48.440]  And I've always said, because that difference is not that great, that who's going to win,
[03:48.440 --> 03:52.440]  what election is where, it's all about who can turn out the vote.
[03:52.440 --> 03:57.320]  So if 100% of the voters from both parties turned out, the Democrats would win, because
[03:57.320 --> 04:00.840]  they, the last time I looked, 53%, okay.
[04:00.840 --> 04:02.120]  But that doesn't happen, right?
[04:02.120 --> 04:06.680]  We don't get 100% of the registered voters to come out to vote.
[04:06.680 --> 04:11.640]  In fact, we get a very, very, very, very tiny percentage of registered voters who actually
[04:11.640 --> 04:12.640]  come out and vote.
[04:12.840 --> 04:15.560]  And that has been falling for a long time.
[04:15.560 --> 04:20.280]  Let's use the figures that the last time I looked, okay, so we've got 53% them.
[04:20.280 --> 04:28.720]  Why do I think that number is going to become more and more skewed and more and more power
[04:28.720 --> 04:33.760]  end up with the Democrat Party and the Republican Party being less and less significant politically
[04:33.760 --> 04:34.760]  in the U.S.?
[04:34.760 --> 04:40.880]  Plus, somebody think I'm, I don't know, not just ambivalent about Republicans and Democrats,
[04:40.880 --> 04:44.200]  but I'm anti-Republican, and that's not true.
[04:44.200 --> 04:48.880]  I was raised in a very, very conservative Republican household.
[04:48.880 --> 04:52.840]  I was a member of the Young Republicans Club at 14, the very first time when I was 18 years
[04:52.840 --> 04:56.960]  old I went to register, obviously I registered as Republican, I was super proud about that.
[04:56.960 --> 04:59.000]  And I remained a Republican most of my life.
[04:59.000 --> 05:05.960]  However, when I was a young man, the Republican Party had a platform which was essentially
[05:05.960 --> 05:10.720]  what today I would consider my libertarian-minded views.
[05:10.720 --> 05:15.760]  So if I go back to when I was 18, 19, 20, 25, the Republican Party was pretty much a
[05:15.760 --> 05:19.560]  reflection of what today we would call libertarian thought.
[05:19.560 --> 05:23.920]  Needless to say, that's not the Republican Party now.
[05:23.920 --> 05:26.880]  My point is I'm not anti-Dem or anti-Republican.
[05:26.880 --> 05:31.440]  I think the whole thing is a farce, but I believe it is in the best interest of the
[05:31.440 --> 05:37.600]  U.S. if we're going to have a two-party system to retain some equanimity between the two
[05:37.600 --> 05:38.600]  parties.
[05:38.600 --> 05:42.840]  I'm sure most people are aware that the people who are the most stalwart Republicans, generally
[05:42.840 --> 05:45.360]  speaking, yes, I know there's always exceptions, there's going to be an exception to everything
[05:45.360 --> 05:46.480]  I say here, by the way.
[05:46.480 --> 05:50.920]  And you may disagree with the entire construct I'm going to lay out, but I'm going to let
[05:50.920 --> 05:51.920]  you know my thoughts.
[05:51.920 --> 05:57.440]  I don't think there's much argument on the fact that the most stalwart Republicans are
[05:57.440 --> 05:59.760]  older Americans.
[05:59.760 --> 06:08.640]  And when I mean older, anywhere from their late 50s, mid 50s through elderly, whatever
[06:08.640 --> 06:13.560]  that means to you, I think it would be fair to say that a number of very stalwart Republicans
[06:13.560 --> 06:15.760]  have died in the last couple of decades.
[06:15.760 --> 06:20.920]  I believe there are probably a lot of stalwart Republicans dropping dead each and every day
[06:20.920 --> 06:22.560]  because they're getting older.
[06:22.560 --> 06:28.200]  I believe we're going to see more and more stalwart Republicans drop dead, just whatever
[06:28.200 --> 06:32.280]  their medical cause or natural conditions or whatever, as we move forward.
[06:32.280 --> 06:33.560]  I think that only makes sense.
[06:33.560 --> 06:39.080]  And there's a much larger block of the Republican Party that's older people than older people
[06:39.080 --> 06:40.560]  in the Democratic Party.
[06:40.560 --> 06:47.040]  So at least by my construct, right there from the issue of deaths, the Republican Party
[06:47.040 --> 06:48.040]  is getting smaller.
[06:48.040 --> 06:50.400]  But of course, that's not the only issue.
[06:50.400 --> 06:53.440]  So let's flip from elderly to the young.
[06:53.440 --> 06:57.880]  I don't think, again, that anybody argues that younger people in America these days
[06:57.880 --> 07:01.200]  are predominantly left of center.
[07:01.200 --> 07:02.200]  We'll phrase it that way.
[07:02.200 --> 07:03.800]  You can characterize it whatever way you want.
[07:03.800 --> 07:05.320]  For today, we're going to call it left of center.
[07:05.320 --> 07:06.840]  They're Democrats.
[07:06.840 --> 07:15.240]  And that number, the young people, is constantly increasing while the elderly is constantly
[07:15.240 --> 07:16.240]  decreasing.
[07:16.240 --> 07:19.440]  If you are a Republican, do you see a problem?
[07:19.440 --> 07:26.160]  I forget which pundit years ago said in a, it's a quote, and I'm paraphrasing, something
[07:26.160 --> 07:30.920]  like, if you weren't a liberal in your youth, you have no heart.
[07:30.920 --> 07:35.160]  And if you were still a liberal as an adult, you have no brain.
[07:35.160 --> 07:38.080]  And obviously, people on the right think that's a great expression.
[07:38.080 --> 07:40.040]  People on the left, not so much.
[07:40.040 --> 07:44.560]  But I think there was, when I was young, I think there was some truth to that.
[07:44.560 --> 07:48.800]  Now, I was never left leaning, but a lot of my friends were when I was young.
[07:48.800 --> 07:52.680]  And I've noticed over the years, a lot of them have become, I don't want to say they're
[07:52.680 --> 07:56.440]  hard right-wingers or not, but they've become more conservative.
[07:56.440 --> 07:59.920]  Some of them have even changed their voter registration to Republican.
[07:59.920 --> 08:01.480]  But that's my generation.
[08:01.480 --> 08:03.480]  Here in a couple of days, I'm going to be 61.
[08:03.480 --> 08:05.160]  That's my generation.
[08:05.160 --> 08:10.160]  And my generation generally held that government was a necessary evil.
[08:10.160 --> 08:14.920]  Wherever we could tell government, get out, this is none of your business, we wanted to
[08:15.920 --> 08:20.080]  Democrats, if you go back to the 1970s, even Democrats were saying, yeah, we need the government
[08:20.080 --> 08:23.880]  to step in for certain things like back in the 60s for the civil rights laws, we needed
[08:23.880 --> 08:24.880]  them to step in.
[08:24.880 --> 08:25.880]  That was the Democratic perspective.
[08:25.880 --> 08:28.600]  But we don't want them to be a part and parcel of our everyday life.
[08:28.600 --> 08:34.880]  We understand that government is not, we don't want them integrated in our daily life.
[08:34.880 --> 08:39.640]  So Democrats and Republicans back when I was young shared that common perspective.
[08:39.640 --> 08:43.400]  I don't believe that's the perspective of young people today.
[08:43.400 --> 08:50.520]  By young people, I mean, say, 17 through 30, which is an ever-growing demographic.
[08:50.520 --> 08:56.840]  I don't believe they feel government is a necessary evil and you want it whenever possible
[08:56.840 --> 08:57.840]  out of your life.
[08:57.840 --> 09:01.400]  I think their construct is completely different than when I was young.
[09:01.400 --> 09:06.120]  I think their construct is, yeah, government, man, that's the shit.
[09:06.120 --> 09:07.120]  Yeah.
[09:07.120 --> 09:10.000]  If you want something done, government.
[09:10.000 --> 09:13.160]  And things like private industry and earning a living, it's like, well, yeah, we have
[09:13.920 --> 09:14.920]  that too.
[09:14.920 --> 09:17.320]  Huge difference, right?
[09:17.320 --> 09:20.000]  So how many of those will change their views as they get older?
[09:20.000 --> 09:24.760]  Well, I'm going to suggest that at least in my estimation, a lot fewer of them are going
[09:24.760 --> 09:30.800]  to transition from being left leaning to being center or right than back in my generation.
[09:30.800 --> 09:36.440]  So by my estimates, we've got the elderly stalwart Republicans dying off.
[09:36.440 --> 09:41.080]  We've got an ever-increasing pool of young people who are typically Democrats.
[09:41.080 --> 09:48.160]  And I imagine that much fewer of them will convert to middle of the road or Republican
[09:48.160 --> 09:49.600]  as they get older.
[09:49.600 --> 09:55.440]  If we put this all together, we end up with constantly decreasing number of people who
[09:55.440 --> 09:57.280]  are registered Republicans.
[09:57.280 --> 09:58.960]  But that's math.
[09:58.960 --> 10:04.680]  What about the message, which I think is perhaps the biggest issue in why so few young people
[10:04.680 --> 10:08.960]  as they get older are going to migrate over towards the right?
[10:08.960 --> 10:09.960]  Is the message.
[10:10.200 --> 10:11.880]  Again, I don't think it's arguable.
[10:11.880 --> 10:15.960]  I've actually had Republicans tell me this, and I probably would have agreed with it when
[10:15.960 --> 10:17.340]  I was a Republican.
[10:17.340 --> 10:21.520]  And that is the Republican is the party of status quo.
[10:21.520 --> 10:24.200]  Republicans typically don't want anything to change.
[10:24.200 --> 10:28.560]  OK, so I think that's generally been perceived as the message.
[10:28.560 --> 10:33.460]  Most people in and out of the Republican Party believe of the Republican Party that it's
[10:33.460 --> 10:35.920]  the party of the status quo.
[10:35.920 --> 10:38.520]  We're not in an era where people want status quo.
[10:38.520 --> 10:40.040]  I'm a big history buff.
[10:40.040 --> 10:45.400]  So the progressive movement started in roughly about 1890 in the United States.
[10:45.400 --> 10:49.200]  And I probably would have been a progressive back then, because progressive meant something
[10:49.200 --> 10:52.360]  entirely different than progressive means today in 2020.
[10:52.360 --> 10:53.360]  I'll give you an example.
[10:53.360 --> 10:57.960]  For instance, in New York state around the turn of the 20th century, if a man say he
[10:57.960 --> 11:03.600]  was 30 years old and he had a wife and they had a peck of kids and the man died in an
[11:03.600 --> 11:04.800]  industrial accident.
[11:04.800 --> 11:07.920]  So now we had a widow with four or five kids.
[11:07.920 --> 11:10.200]  And of course, she has to care for those four or five young kids.
[11:10.200 --> 11:11.460]  So she can't go out and work.
[11:11.460 --> 11:15.640]  Maybe she could be a seamstress, but maybe not, depending on where she lived or what
[11:15.640 --> 11:17.520]  her skill levels were and so forth.
[11:17.520 --> 11:23.600]  So in New York state, what they did was if the woman could not pay the debt that the
[11:23.600 --> 11:29.160]  man was servicing when he was alive, they would come in and take her children away from
[11:29.160 --> 11:32.920]  her and put them in an orphanage so that she could go to work and pay those debts.
[11:33.200 --> 11:36.640]  So I don't think anybody today thinks that's a nifty idea.
[11:36.640 --> 11:40.760]  What changed that was progressives of that era.
[11:40.760 --> 11:46.040]  That's why I say completely different construct to the term progressive at the turn of the
[11:46.040 --> 11:48.040]  20th century than we have here today.
[11:48.040 --> 11:54.600]  Nevertheless, there is actually a sentiment that goes with progressive, right?
[11:54.600 --> 11:59.840]  And the sentiment is we're moving forward, depending on who you're talking to, moving
[11:59.840 --> 12:03.880]  forward in a positive direction, moving forward in a negative direction, but progressive,
[12:03.880 --> 12:08.800]  the word disassociated from politics, progressive normally means we're moving forward.
[12:08.800 --> 12:17.360]  And my estimate is we live in this fast-paced society now where everybody wants, let's disassociate
[12:17.360 --> 12:20.160]  progressive politics, just the word progress.
[12:20.160 --> 12:21.440]  Everybody's now wanting progress.
[12:21.440 --> 12:24.400]  Everybody's looking for the next big thing.
[12:24.400 --> 12:27.600]  So if you're looking for progress in the next big thing, are you going to find it in a party
[12:27.760 --> 12:30.640]  whose mantra is pretty much, let's maintain the status quo?
[12:30.640 --> 12:34.520]  Remember, I started this by saying how to salvage the Republican Party.
[12:34.520 --> 12:40.120]  So having laid this all out, I want to share at least one thing that I think would be crucial
[12:40.120 --> 12:47.960]  if the Republican Party wants to not experience the deleterious effects that I believe it
[12:47.960 --> 12:50.400]  will based on all I've shared with you up to this point.
[12:50.400 --> 12:51.400]  So here's the thing.
[12:51.400 --> 12:56.960]  If society wants to progress, they want to move forward, they want the next big thing.
[12:57.040 --> 13:01.160]  And today, that also involves government, not just private sector as it did when I was
[13:01.160 --> 13:02.160]  young.
[13:02.160 --> 13:04.760]  I mean, you talked about the next big thing and making progress in the world.
[13:04.760 --> 13:07.080]  When I was young, that never meant government.
[13:07.080 --> 13:08.640]  It always meant private sector.
[13:08.640 --> 13:13.640]  I believe today most people believe in those things, but they're looking at government.
[13:13.640 --> 13:18.120]  They're either looking at government exclusively or they're looking at government and the private
[13:18.120 --> 13:21.320]  sector, a completely different dynamic than when I was young.
[13:21.320 --> 13:30.040]  In my opinion, what the Republican Party needs is a series of planks in their platform.
[13:30.040 --> 13:31.040]  There is no platform right now.
[13:31.040 --> 13:35.360]  For instance, here in 2020, the Republican Party did not even put up a platform for this
[13:35.360 --> 13:36.360]  election.
[13:36.360 --> 13:38.840]  It's pretty much whatever Donald Trump says is the platform.
[13:38.840 --> 13:41.880]  But I think it's critical moving forward, whether Trump is gone in November or whether
[13:41.880 --> 13:47.120]  Trump's gone in four years from now, it's critical that the Republican Party, again,
[13:47.280 --> 13:53.760]  that structural construct over the next years or decades, probably decades, needs to have
[13:53.760 --> 13:54.760]  planks.
[13:54.760 --> 13:55.760]  And there's a reason.
[13:55.760 --> 14:01.240]  I'm not just saying because, you know, political planks are good in a platform, no, a specific
[14:01.240 --> 14:03.760]  reason in this instance.
[14:03.760 --> 14:10.800]  And the reason is the Republican Party needs to find issues where they can extol the virtue
[14:10.800 --> 14:14.200]  of making progress.
[14:14.200 --> 14:18.920]  If they're going to see people migrate from left leaning positions over to center or over
[14:18.920 --> 14:23.280]  to the right, they need to key into the desire that people want progress.
[14:23.280 --> 14:24.280]  They want to move forward.
[14:24.280 --> 14:26.160]  They want the next big thing.
[14:26.160 --> 14:33.360]  And I get that it goes again, it grinds against the Republican ethos to keep government moving
[14:33.360 --> 14:37.480]  forward when, in fact, we want to stop it or back it up.
[14:37.480 --> 14:41.040]  OK, I totally get that that rubs Republicans the wrong way.
[14:41.040 --> 14:42.480]  But I think there are issues.
[14:42.480 --> 14:48.880]  There's enough shit going on in this country that the Republicans can create, not create,
[14:48.880 --> 14:55.280]  acknowledge issues upon which progress should be made.
[14:55.280 --> 14:57.400]  OK, so let me be clear.
[14:57.400 --> 15:03.280]  I'm not talking about like what ultra right wing conservatives might say, oh, here's something
[15:03.280 --> 15:05.120]  we can progress upon.
[15:05.120 --> 15:08.680]  Let's go out and shoot all those leftist protesters.
[15:08.680 --> 15:14.640]  It's got to be appealing to a large swath of the American population, not just feathering
[15:14.640 --> 15:16.080]  your own preference bet.
[15:16.080 --> 15:22.240]  OK, so I believe the Republican Party can, if it cares to, which I don't know that it
[15:22.240 --> 15:31.120]  does, I believe the Republican Party can identify key issues in the U.S. and perhaps foreign
[15:31.120 --> 15:36.160]  affairs upon which progress can and should be made.
[15:36.200 --> 15:39.040]  And the Republicans can own those subjects.
[15:39.040 --> 15:41.040]  They can say, this is our topic.
[15:41.040 --> 15:43.880]  I've got this topic A. This is the Republican topic.
[15:43.880 --> 15:47.640]  And I got topic D. This is the Republican topic.
[15:47.640 --> 15:51.320]  These are separate and distinct from what the Democrats are talking about.
[15:51.320 --> 15:54.480]  And we're going to move forward with these things.
[15:54.480 --> 15:57.920]  We're going to improve the country.
[15:57.920 --> 16:00.640]  We're going to make things better.
[16:00.640 --> 16:03.480]  We're going to progress.
[16:03.480 --> 16:06.680]  These are going to be the next big things.
[16:06.680 --> 16:11.560]  But again, any Republican who wants to tackle this has to make sure that those issues are
[16:11.560 --> 16:14.760]  issues that are appealing to a large swath of the American people.
[16:14.760 --> 16:22.400]  If the Republican Party were to, for instance, take my model, my construct, and just adopt
[16:22.400 --> 16:27.440]  traditional old school Republican stuff that basically most of the population isn't interested
[16:27.440 --> 16:30.800]  in anymore, obviously that would fail.
[16:30.800 --> 16:32.680]  So these are my thoughts.
[16:32.680 --> 16:34.760]  If you want, go ahead and put your thoughts in the comment.
[16:34.760 --> 16:42.600]  I think what would be really interesting would be to hear your ideas on what those planks
[16:42.600 --> 16:48.200]  could be that would be appealing to a large percentage of the American population, that
[16:48.200 --> 16:50.560]  the Republican Party could own them.
[16:50.560 --> 16:56.320]  Republican Party could run candidates on those planks, win elections.
[16:56.320 --> 17:05.040]  So we return some balance to the left-right paradigm, which I believe we are in danger
[17:05.040 --> 17:05.600]  of losing.