To Build the Bridge or Burn it Down? - Episode 151

Another colorful and emotionally charged primary election in my former home state of Washington, specifically in the governor's race. In the episode I'm sharing my thoughts and perspectives on the outcome from my limited experience in politics and government. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The 2024 election season is in full swing, and I think it's pretty safe to say that we have seen a whole new level of crazy, especially on a national level, with the presidential election Holy cow. Today we're going to talk, though, a little bit about what I've seen going on in my former home state of Washington and why it's so important for us to be really strategic when it comes to election. Hi, I'm Julie Barrett and you're listening to the Woman's Blaining Podcast. I'm also the founder of Conservative Ladies of America, which started in Washington state. As Conservative Ladies of Washington, we are an organization of like-minded ladies and gentlemen who are working hard to encourage, equip and empower citizens to stand up and create real change in their local community, their state and even on a national level. We are very committed to action-oriented steps for citizens, and I would love for you to join our movement. You can learn more about us at conservativeladiesofamericacom. That's conservativeladiesofamericacom. You can also find us on Substack, conservative Ladies of America as well, and we send out a lot of content, a lot of emails and videos and lots of ways for you to get information and to engage.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Well, it's been a few minutes, okay, maybe a few months, since I have recorded a podcast episode. There's just been a lot going on and, to be really honest with you, it's hard for me to force myself to sit down and record these episodes. I do all of my own editing and producing, if you can call it that, and so it does take a little bit of time and effort, and I am much more to the written content. But I have some stuff on my mind that I wanted to do an episode about. I posted on X earlier today a episode that I did with my friend, tyler Miller. If you listen to the podcast, you've probably heard several episodes that I've done with Tyler.

Speaker 1: 2:18

We did this one in July of 2022, coming up on the primary elections in Washington state, and Washington state has a jungle primary, so it is where you have all of the candidates on your ballot and the top two vote getters go on to the general election. It's really a wacky system and it makes things very challenging in certain races especially so, for instance, in the governor's race in 2020, you had, I want to say, there are at least half a dozen Republican, solid Republican candidates on the primary ballot. You could end up with two Democrats or two Republicans on the general ballot, so it just makes things interesting. It makes things a little more difficult. It's a little bit more difficult to be strategic as well, if you have. You know you're trying to get everybody on the same page, and sometimes candidates don't want to do that, or there'll be where a group or a party endorses a candidate and all the other candidates agree to drop out. But in some races maybe you don't get everybody to agree to that, so it can kind of get messy and, um, this year it got messy and it was messy very long ago and with conservative ladies of Washington, um, I knew that this was going to be a very emotional race for the state governor.

Speaker 1: 3:44

There was a candidate who came out very early on actually, it was the election night of 2022. Semi bird announced that he was running and then dave reichert, who is a former congressman, announced last summer that he was running as well, and they're very different kinds of republicans. You have your more conservative Republican in Semi-Bird and you have more of your establishment mainstream, whatever you want to call it in Dave Reichert and, to be very blunt, he does not have a good voting record. When he was in Congress, his Liberty score was something like 36 percent. Voted a lot with Obama and voted for some very bad policy. And then there was an article in the Seattle Times, which is the main newspaper in western Washington, that came out in 2020, where he was in support of and in favor of the lockdowns that were going on in Washington state. And if you live in Washington or if you've followed kind of national news Washington If you live in Washington or if you've followed kind of national news Washington, along with New York and California, was locked down for quite some time. The governor, jay Inslee, current governor, had emergency powers for almost 1000 days. It was absolutely ridiculous, and so seeing Dave come out in 2020 in support of the COVID measures is kind of a scary thing for me. I mean, I'm no longer a voter in Washington state, but I probably would have taken my chances on Semmy Bird if I were a voter in that primary election.

Speaker 1: 5:19

It was forecasted early on that Semmy wouldn't be able to get the votes to clear the primary and, you know, I personally don't think that in Washington at this point in time, there is a way to win a statewide race. I just don't see it happening. And so, with conservative ladies of Washington, we decided to focus on the legislative seats because that's more local People could really get involved. They could get to know the candidate, they could go out door knocking. There was a bigger opportunity to make greater impact and really influence the vote with a statewide race and a candidate who semi bird is from the east side of the state. Dave Reichert's from the west side of the state and he had the name recognition and so he was getting a lot of media attention and difficult for Sammy Bird to go over to the west side and knock on doors and have all the events and fundraisers and things that would be necessary to win. I still don't think that Dave Reichert will win the general.

Speaker 1: 6:23

I just don't see that a Republican governor in Washington state can win the general and a lot of people people are very emotional. Semi had a lot of support from the conservative base whatever you want to call it of the Washington state GOP and they had a convention this year and I think it was something like 72% of the delegates at the state convention voted to endorse Semi-Bird and Dave Reichert did not drop out. People feel that the party didn't do enough to support Bird. There was so much emotional charge behind this race that it was very difficult for our organization to try to stay out of it as much as possible, because I didn't see in my team, we didn't see how it would be a win for us to endorse either candidate, because what we need to focus on is building a bridge after the primary, and I have already received for saying such a thing. I have already received lots of interesting comments on social media. I had one person tell me that I was bought off, which, if I'm bought off, I really would like to see that check Please. I could use that right about now.

Speaker 1: 7:44

So there's a lot of charge in these people that were really supportive of Semibird and really invested in his campaign and they are very genuine and they really want him to win. But the reality is the votes just weren't there and they say he was sabotaged by the Washington GOP or the big donors or the mainstream Republicans of Washington and those facts. The mainstreamers and the big donors did not support Semibird and, yes, they put out hit pieces against Semibird. What kind of an impact did that have? I don't know. It maybe had an impact, but I don't think the impact was great enough that it actually influenced this race Reichert had. The last time I looked, he had over 400,000 votes. Semibird had around 153,000 votes. So you're looking at, you know 250,000 votes and I just don't see that the average voter is paying that much attention to the establishment Republicans or the Washington GOP.

Speaker 1: 8:53

What I've learned in the short time that I've been involved? Because I got involved in 2016 when Trump was running the first time that's when I started paying attention I shouldn't say involved, because I just started paying attention. I started speaking out my opinion on social media that was really the extent of it and then I created the Facebook group for conservative ladies of Washington at the end of 2019, which brought us into 2020, which was another election cycle, and so I was seeing this because in that race, we had sort of a similar issue on the Republican side and their people in the Facebook group were just horrible to each other. There was so much emotion. It was kind of the same deal that is going on right now, and so we really had to moderate the group to keep people on their best behavior.

Speaker 1: 9:40

It just isn't realistic to think that a very staunch conservative candidate can win in a state like Washington. Maybe someday, but certainly not today and definitely not four years from now. I mean, we're talking about turning the Titanic around 180 degrees. This is going to take a long time and most of the people in Washington are like me they're not paying attention. And it was after that 2020 election that I started looking at what is the Republican party doing and who are the players in this, and that's when I started kind of looking around and taking notice.

Speaker 1: 10:24

But it probably wasn't really until early 2022, end of 2021, where I started seeing that you know, you had these different factions in the party and and on the right, which I have started calling the non-Democrats, because I think you have a very large spectrum of the right anymore, because you've got sort of the radical Democrats that have gone completely off the left cliff, and then you kind of have everybody else and there's this, this big spectrum. But once you see kind of behind the curtain and what's going on, you you learn a lot more and you start to see what is and is not realistic and just seeing the way things are going with your sort of establishment republicans in washington who have really been running the show for the last several decades, and then you kind of get these trump supporters I'll call them trump republicans in the mix and you know we have this idea that we want everything to be really conservative. We want you to do things by the constitution. We don't want you making deals with the Democrats and I support all that.

Speaker 1: 11:35

I am in that camp, but I'm also in reality and in a state like Washington, you can't expect to come in with your ultra conservative, even sort of conservative candidate and get a win. It just isn't going to work like that. And the average voter is I am going to just say, probably because of the media is a little turned off when they hear all of the buzzwords around a conservative candidate. Even if they're a fantastic candidate and they're not like ultra MAGA and extreme right wing, they're still turned off by it. And so I think having a more moderate is going to be the way forward. That doesn't mean I like it, that doesn't mean I agree with the candidate's policy, but, like I said, I'm a realist and in order to get from here to there, we're going to have to inch our way from the left cliff back towards the center, and that's going to take time. And is it hard for me to consider stomaching voting for someone who is pro-choice, pro-abortion? Absolutely, because I don't want that.

Speaker 1: 12:51

But in the case of Washington, where you have now Dave Reichert's going to go up against Bob Ferguson, who is very evil and very pro-abortion and, on demand, and he'll probably at some point expand abortion to, you know, to toddlers I hope I'm kidding when I say that, but you have, um. I hope I'm kidding when I say that, um, but you have, you have two. While dave reichert is saying he's pro-choice, you do have ferguson, who is very pro-abortion, he's pro-death, he has advanced abortion, he has advanced the so-called gender affirming care, child, child mutilation, and he has advanced assisted suicide. So now someone can get lethal drugs by mail by talking to a social worker. Okay, so we have gone far off the left cliff.

Speaker 1: 13:39

So I'm going to take Dave, who's not quite as radical, he's not where I'd want him to be, but those are my two choices. And so I'm going to pick, yes, the lesser of two evils, and people will listen to me say that and they'll say, well, we shouldn't have to pick the lesser of two evils. Okay, but we're living in reality. We're not living in where we want to be. Uh, reality definitely is not where I want to be right now, but this is what we have to deal with. These are our options right now. One option is better than the other and people are very emotional. They don't want to hear reality and they don't want to be strategic. They you know it's, it's. It's very frustrating because I don't know, if we can't get people to kind of dial back on the emotions, how do we become strategic to start planning for the years ahead, to turn these states around?

Speaker 1: 14:36

Because even though I don't live in Washington anymore I don't vote in Washington anymore I have family there. My parents are there, my in-laws are there, I've got children there and I grew up there. I mean, I was there for my entire life, 48 years of my life. I was there, my husband also, and we love it. It's our home and we don't like to see it destroyed. We don't like to see families torn apart. We don't like to see children being harmed in the way that they are with Washington policies. And that's why I got involved with legislation because of the policies that impacted my family, the policies that hurt my children, and wanting to influence future policies so that either we can undo some of the damage or hold the line, so we don't get more of these bad policies, and also to educate other citizens and other parents so that they understand exactly what the laws are in Washington and how they can protect their children, because if you don't know what the laws are, then you don't know how to protect your children.

Speaker 1: 15:40

So in being active in the legislative process, that means that my team and I have to work with the people that have been elected, and, it's true, not all Republicans are the same. There are some Republicans that are more conservative than others, and there are some Republicans that feel to me like they're the 1990s Bill Clinton Democrats. They're much more moderate, I would consider them to be more on the Democrat side, and they write policy with the Democrats and they vote with the Democrats, and it's very discouraging, but they are the people that are elected, and so our team has made the effort of building relationships with these people, because I think one of the things I say all the time is it's not personal, it's politics, or it's not personal, it's policy, and we should be able to have conversations with elected officials, who are on either side, really, but in Washington the Democrats are so far left. It's impossible to have conversations with them, but with moderate Republicans. I've had many conversations with Republicans in Washington, who I disagree with on a lot of things. But when you can find the common ground, when you can find the policies and the issues where you do agree, then you can work together and I think that helps to build trust and it helps to build that relationship that you need to have with that person. And I think we also have to be able to disagree and hold them accountable when they sponsor or vote for bad policies, policies that hurt the citizens and policies that hurt their constituents.

Speaker 1: 17:26

And I think that we, as I'm just speaking for my organization, we have a duty and responsibility to educate the citizens about the policies that are being passed and who are the people that are sponsoring this. That way, when election time comes, they can choose better. If they get a more conservative Republican to run against the moderate Republican, perhaps they can work with that person and get enough votes to make a change in their district. And this is one of the reasons why we chose to work in legislation, because we felt that it was somewhere we could impact. We could educate the citizens about the policies and about the positions that their elected officials held on certain policies, so that when elections came around, they were educated and they could talk to the candidates and the incumbents and say, hey, this was a really bad policy and you supported it why? If the citizens are willing to hold their elected leaders accountable, I think that we would see a shift in the way that these elected officials behave and vote in the policies that they sponsor. If they know that people are paying attention, they might behave differently.

Speaker 1: 18:43

And while Washington is nearly an impossible state to effect change in policy, we did a really pretty good job of holding a lot of bad, bad policies at bay and we did a good job of alerting citizens so they knew what policies were being proposed and most of them eventually being passed. But that gave them the opportunity to speak up and say no, I don't want this, because it's not enough just to go and vote once every couple years or every four years. You have to be engaged in some level and it's not that hard. There's a lot of ways to be engaged and the fact of the matter is most people just don't want to take the time to do it. They're perfectly content smashing their keyboard while they're on Facebook or X or wherever you happen to fight your keyboard wars, but that's not enough. Those for the most part they're an echo chamber. We go to the places where the people who think like us are engaging, and if you're on X, it's primarily conservatives. If you're on Facebook, I think it's a lot of well, it's older people, but, um, I think probably a lot more liberal on Facebook because there's not as much as you can say. But you know, you've got your conservative telegram groups and signal groups and things like that and we have to show up. We have to show up to these places, whether it's your city council, your county council, your school board, uh, and your or your state legislature, even in Washington DC. We have to show up, we have to make our voices heard and we can't just be content to be bitching on social media with other people who think like us or don't think like us, and we're just kind of um, enjoying the, the debate that's actually getting us, uh, absolutely nowhere. And so the whole point of why I wanted to talk about this today in this podcast is that what I see happening in Washington, it makes me really sad, and it's not that I didn't see this coming, because I fully knew that this is how the primary would play out.

Speaker 1: 20:51

I have a lot of friends that worked very hard for Semmy Bird and believed in Semmy a lot. I uh that we that worked very hard for semi bird and believed in semi a lot. I've met semi. I've I've met him in person. I've talked to him on the phone. I did an interview video live stream with him on YouTube. I like him. He is a good man and he's passionate and he loves his country and he ran a great race. He ran a hard race. I don't know how many people I don't know hardly anyone.

Speaker 1: 21:22

Um, you have to be crazy, honestly, to run for office in Washington. I wouldn't do it. They asked me to do it in 2022 and I wouldn't do it because I knew it was just an impossible thing and I didn't want to waste my energy, um, in that way. I didn't want to waste my finances in that way. I didn't want to waste my finances in that way. I didn't want to take the attacks for something that I knew wasn't going to have a payoff. And so kudos to him for putting in that work. I know he did it because he really loves Washington and he really loves his country and he wanted to serve the people.

Speaker 1: 21:53

But now we've got Dave Reichert came out of the primary and is onto the general against Bob Ferguson, and Bob Ferguson is bad for Washington, horrible for Washington. I honestly I've told my parents I'm like I don't know if I'd go back If Bob Ferguson becomes governor. I don't know if I would feel safe getting off a plane. He is that guy. He is the tyrant that has a book of names and he has websites that he tracks people and he has his new hate crime hotline that passed this year and he's got his domestic violent extremist task force that he's going to probably launch in 2025. It didn't pass through this last session, so we'll probably see that come back because he wants to target people like me, people who are in the fight on the conservative side and resisting what his agenda is, and so I think there's a lot of bad, bad stuff coming with a Bob Ferguson governor and I hope that, as time passes and the election results aren't certified yet, they'll be certified, I think, in another week or so and hopefully, once that happens, people can move forward and try to repair relationships.

Speaker 1: 23:08

I saw friendships ruined over this primary and it was really sad. People calling each other names and it breaks my heart because it's not worth it. Politics should not be personal, and yet it is for so many people. But we've got to be in this fight. We've got to link arms with people who, for the most part, see things the way we do or want things that we want, which is freedom and liberty, do or want things that we want, which is freedom and liberty. And we have to unite as much as possible in those things that we agree on and then work constructively and respectfully and strategically in those areas where we don't agree.

Speaker 1: 23:50

And I've done a lot of episodes on some of the different areas of issues that I think that we could message better on and start meeting, meeting in the middle and pulling things back from the left cliff towards the center and then start inching it to the right. So there's going to be a lot more work to do and I think that I think we all have an opportunity as we move forward into this election season because, you see, you see it on on the presidential level too, which is a whole other episode, but with the Trump Vance campaign and the Kamala uh, what's his name? Walls campaign. I will do another episode on that, but you've got you've got really radical left and you know some of your loved ones and friends might be Democrats and and planning to vote for that, and that's also evil, that's Bob Ferguson level evil. They're all kind of in the same little evil camp.

Speaker 1: 24:45

And so we've got to build bridges with our sane friends who are Democrats, because we need to do whatever we can to shine the light on the evil that is these Democrat candidates and try in whatever ways that we can to bring them into some common sense with us.

Speaker 1: 25:07

Whether you're in Washington and common sense looks like Dave Reichert or on a national level of common sense looks like Trump, which for people who don't like Trump, that's a hard sell and we've got to find ways, we've got to make ways to build bridges and to try to bring people into the messaging that we need, because I definitely see this election in many different areas.

Speaker 1: 25:31

As you know, on a national level, washington and other states have very consequential races ahead of them and we have to build bridges so that we can save our country. These are just my thoughts as someone who is not a political expert or a political consultant, but I do know people and I've worked with a lot of people and how we communicate and how we move towards saving our country, making our country better for our kids. I believe we do need to be more strategic and we need to build bridges. We don't have to see eye to eye on everything, but we do need to be able to work together in whatever ways we can. So I appreciate you listening and I'd love it if you'd share this episode with any of your like-minded friends or people that you think would appreciate it. If you've got thoughts on this issue, I would love to hear from you. All of my contact information is listed below in the episode description and I look forward to chatting with you again next time. Thank you.