Politically High-Tech
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Politically High-Tech
235- Analyzing the Ideological Divide Shaping America
What if America's future is a harrowing battleground of political ideologies? Join us on Politically High Tech as we sit down with author William R. Douglas to discuss his latest novel, "The Sum of All Our Anger," which imagines a second American Civil War triggered by radical socialist policies in 2061. William delves into the intricate political and religious themes of his work and reflects on America’s current trajectory, drawing eerie parallels to his debut book, "The Death and Resurrection of Baseball." Through our conversation, William offers a fascinating glimpse into his creative process and the role faith and conservatism play in his storytelling.
As we continue, we expose the alarming rise of socialist and Marxist influences in America, scrutinizing groups like the Democratic Socialists of America and the Revolutionary Communist Party USA. We analyze their anti-capitalist agendas and the potential ramifications within the Democratic Party, emphasizing the importance of peaceful protests over violent revolution. This chapter critiques the media for its biased coverage, often sidelining radical left-wing activities, and advocates for a more balanced and objective approach to news reporting.
In the final chapters, we tackle the complexities of political ideologies, media sensationalism, and patriotism. We explore the misconceptions and stereotypes that link conservatism with white supremacy and liberalism with socialism, using historical and current political figures to illustrate our points. Additionally, we delve into issues like corporate power, judicial actions against monopolies, and the ongoing societal division under futuristic governance. By understanding the Constitution and acknowledging past mistakes, this episode encourages listeners to engage in balanced political discourse and take actionable steps toward a better future. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on the societal and political dynamics shaping America today and tomorrow.
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Welcome everyone to Politically High Tech with your host, elias. I have a guest here and before I introduce him, all I want to say is right now, you want to keep this book in a category called fiction. I'll just give you a little hint. Keep it in a category called fiction because and I'm not giving too much away if we don't get our act together as Americans, this is one of the potential realities and God forbid it happens. That's what I'll say In probably the slightly sickening parts. I'm excited to have this conversation. I don't know if you call it sickening or just Maybe. I'm just curious. I'm showing mentally. I demonstrate mental illness if I keep saying that. I don't want to stop my attention at all. So I'm just curious about this. But what gets the author's mind? Just a little bit, of course. No spoilers. I mean, I'm against that Unless I do them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you go to his side, you know, and I let him spoil by accident. But I might even cut those off because, since I have a good idea how the book ends and all of that, I'm gonna cut those off. So no spoilers. I could enforce it. Thank goodness I read the book, so there's gonna be no spoilers and of course I'll be up that. I could enforce it. Thank goodness I read the book, so it's going to be no spoilers. And of course, that would be up to the author as well, because there's probably going to be certain things I don't even realize could be a spoiler as well.
Speaker 1:Definitely something like the ending, for example, cutting that one off instinctually Nope, nope, nope, I don't care if the author's okay with it, I'm just like no, nope, I don't care if the author's okay with it, I'm a noob.
Speaker 2:Support this. Author man.
Speaker 1:Support this author man, and let me introduce his name. His name is Arthur. I'm going to fix that right now. His name is William R. I'm going to call that R. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:Ready for the bad future or reckless for writing this dystopian dystopian of future. Seriously, he accomplished. It's not the first book he has written. By the way, he's written Revive for Baseball. That's another thing as well. But we're going to talk about I'm going to nickname this. Well, it's a great part of the title Civil War 2.0. The first Civil War was really bloody. Okay, we know about that one that was full of free territory and that was the most bloodiest conflict. There you go, look at that.
Speaker 2:Some of all our anger Civil War 2.0.
Speaker 1:You see that flag, that flag. It's an important Piece of the story. I'm not going to say much about it, unless we somehow get there, but I'm going to do my best To restrain, because I just hate spoilers personally and all that. So he's an author, and I'm sure you're. I won't be surprised if you're a Christian person that believes in God, because there's a lot, there's a good amount of God references. I mean I will be foolish not to make that connection. I'm a Christian myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely a conservative Christian.
Speaker 1:And I might even be surprised by the political leanings of the office, conservative or Christian. Christianity is important, even though I am a moderate, but I would say when it comes to Christianity I think I join the right wingers in that Religion and God is important. I know a life without it. It's a mess just saying mouthly and I go to my own episodes about that. I'm not going to regurgitate on that sure yeah we.
Speaker 1:It's all about william here. I'm just a side character's guy in the conversation here, so let's welcome william r douglas. What do you want the listeners and viewers to know about you?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, elias, I want to thank you for inviting me on to Politically High Tech. It's an honor to be on your show and talk about my second book, the Sum of All Our Anger, and I'm an author as a side trade. Really, my full-time role is. I'm involved in the information technology field, but this is my second book. My debut book came out in 2022. It's called the Death and Resurrection of Baseball. It's a futuristic novel. It takes place in the year 2166. The sport of baseball has been dead for 100 years and this 12-year-old boy, who's the hero of the book, becomes involved in in, uh, rediscovering the sport and trying to bring it back, uh from the ashes of a second civil war. So, uh, yeah. So I I wrote this second book about a second civil war, and here we are on your podcast to talk about it, so I'm glad to be on your show, yeah and the it's not very far off from the revival of baseball is 2016-1.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I think April it started. Correct me there.
Speaker 2:Well, the first book, the baseball book, starts in the year 2166.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, more of that one yeah right.
Speaker 2:A strong thread in the first book has a tie back to a fictional Second Civil War a hundred years earlier. The book that we're talking about today obviously is about that Second Civil War In book time. The book starts in January of 2061 with the inauguration of a new president who's openly socialist.
Speaker 1:And yeah, that one is quite the character. I was going to say that in a very bad way, yeah that guy. I'm not sure I want to say his name.
Speaker 2:He's on the back of the book cover so we can safely see his name and not have it be a spoiler.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, right, cyrus Devon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Devon Cyrus is the name of the fictional president who's openly socialist.
Speaker 2:So the general synopsis is that he wants to finally do away with the last vestiges of what he calls the old way of America, which is the conservatives and the Constitution, et cetera, and wants to bring about a socialist utopia. And he has something called the new way of policy that's supposed to get rid of the last part of America from the old way and introduce America into this new way of thought and thinking and governing. And so that's the gist of the story. From the antagonist standpoint. That's what he wants to do to the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think in the beginning Texas already succeeded from the Union. That was, and there's a Latino leadership there and that's actually quite interesting. I'm not surprised that was going to happen eventually. I think that's just a slow, inevitable. Not because of you know geography and cultural influences, it's because of you know geography and cultural influences. It's not because you know the second Alamo happened when Latinos killed the white people. That is just. I'm sure it happened eventually. So why you pick 26.
Speaker 1:The way I see it, now that you put these two together, it seems like the second book is kind of like a prequel in a way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a very loosely tied prequel. There's two characters in the Civil War book, jackson and Deshaun King, that are mentioned in the baseball book from a very famous battle scene that's depicted in the Civil War book. So loosely tied prequel. And the genesis of the story was in doing a lot of interviews on the first book, a lot of podcast hosts were asking me well, are you going to write about the war that's in the book? Because it sounds pretty horrific, you know. And so that was the germination for that, of course, with all the things going on with the country right now, with all the divisions going on left and right and all the tribalism and everything else going on, and so that definitely had a huge input into prompting me to write the story. And then eight grandkids and a ninth went on the way eight grandkids and a ninth one on the way, and my grave concern for their future as well, given all the divisions we have going on in the country.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, definitely I have grave concerns. I would have wished this would have magically disappeared, but if you don't do something about it, you know, like I said, I don't want this book to be an accurate predictor, I want this just to be. I was going to throw this out there. A conspiracy theory fiction. Okay, not even conspiracy theory, just fiction. You want it just put into fiction. You want to keep it in the fiction category, forget conspiracy theory.
Speaker 2:That was a dumb take. Just keep it in fiction, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's what in fiction.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's what we want to do.
Speaker 1:We don't want this to be a future act. We want this book to be a visionary, for the wrong reasons, because it is especially the way we're going.
Speaker 1:The left attacks the right with racism and then, of course, the right attacks the left. A bunch of commies and loonies and all that. I think both of them. Sadly, they play a role in that and I like the breakup because I think that breakup's going to happen. The Libs are the definitely the left, the communists I mean as left as they could be the moderates. Assume if I'm alive at that time I would be a very elderly person. I would probably just have all this white and a few of them fall off. At this point I would definitely be in the mod camp. I generally don't swing too far because I believe if you swing too far you lose IQ points and save both sides.
Speaker 1:But there's one thing I'm not going to compromise in. Yeah, I think if he was president, I think I would have temporarily joined the I would have been a bond, probably joined the conservatives just for the fact that you're just disrespecting the Constitution so openly. I know his goal was to burn all things. That was old America, like wipe them out, clean, burn them. That's enough just to turn me, just for me to be vocal. And so no, no, no, no. We could do some left-wing policies. I think that could still be pretty American, but not this burning, not this censorship, not this re-education Camp. So I'm definitely against that. That's something that Communist China does with Uyghur people. Okay, do you?
Speaker 2:want that. Was that your or mine?
Speaker 1:So yeah, if you want, cancel culture and Concentration camps and just toss out the American Constitution, have no regard for it, then, yeah, you are a communist and I'm going to join the right, because that's just too radical for a modern person like myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right, yeah. I think it's important for the conversation to really take a step into the forest, as it were, and look closely at what is going on. I'll offer my perspective and certainly welcome yours, elias, obviously. So our current status is that there's all this focus on the extreme right, that they're dangerous, you know they're fascist, and add every other name that is currently in use and in vogue, and so everybody's so focused on the extreme right wing that I think they're missing the real threat. I really believe this, of course, I believed it so much, I wrote a book, but I think the greater, much greater threat really comes from the extreme left, and let me explain why. First of all, when you take the Democratic Party from its famous and from its Rooseveltian fame, its Harry Truman fame, its John F Kennedy fame, all of whom were great patriots and great Americans, great lovers of our Constitution and, again, patriotic, when you take that kind of picture a word picture of what the Democratic Party has been in the past and then you take a look at what it is becoming, I think you can make a case that there are grave concerns, and for me, the concern is that the extreme left wing that has infiltrated. The party is really using it as kind of like a Trojan horse, a proverbial Trojan horse. They're using it to accomplish a goal that has nothing to do with American patriotism or the Constitution. To do with American patriotism or the Constitution, it has everything to do with a socialist agenda, and the evidence for that is really quite strong If you take time and look at video of some of the protests from the last several years.
Speaker 2:There's no need to mention the names, because everybody knows them. You can look them up. And there's one thing that really caught my attention before I started writing the book, and that was that a lot of protesters were carrying these protest signs, that they seemed to look alike, even though there's a protest in Seattle, there's a protest in Minneapolis, a protest in New York, a protest at, you know, columbia College and all these other places. And there were signs that had the same phrases on them, they had the same logos on them, and I'm like what is this all about? Because are these people traveling back and forth or what? Or is there someone behind them promoting these signs and distributing these signs?
Speaker 2:And so I took a close look at some of these signs that you can see in the videos and, believe it or not, they were all tied to various socialist slash and or Marxist organizations, and a common thread for all of them is that they hate capitalism, they really don't much care for our constitutional republic and they wish to literally, you know, burn it all down, deconstruct America as it currently exists and reconstruct it with a new charter that's Marxist, slash, socialist as its core and also embrace a socialist economic model.
Speaker 2:And they really, I think, have a solid toehold within the Democratic Party and are a significant threat to our republic, are a significant threat to our republic, and so part of the theme of the book is to highlight this threat, obviously and in fiction form.
Speaker 2:Imagine what happens if their power base, which is currently a minority within the Democratic Party, continues to grow and expand and, I would say, trick Americans and eventually, 40 years from now approximately, we reach a tipping point where their power is enough to ascend to the White House and then try to again deconstruct the country for the purposes of rebuilding it into some kind of socialist utopia.
Speaker 2:So, you know, some of the groups that I discovered were the Democratic Socialists of America, the Workers' World Party, industrial Workers of the World and also the Revolutionary Communist Party USA. These were some of the sponsors of these protest signs that we saw. They have since calmed down considerably, thankfully, but just before college let out, of course, they made a reappearance at a lot of universities. Some of these signs and these organizations that I mentioned and to every one of them that I just mentioned, they are very anti-capitalist, very decidedly Marxist and or socialist, and very decidedly are calling for some kind of revolution, even violent revolution, in order to rid the world of the scourge of the United States as we currently know it. Obviously, I'm deeply opposed to such an undertaking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that starts. This is why I'm a moderate, because I'm fine with peaceful protests but the thing I would criticize is you know, and overthrowing, getting rid of capitalism, that's a non-starter for me. I won't even negotiate with that. I think capitalism is a flawed system. I think it's the best system that we have as of now. Okay.
Speaker 1:And it's the best system to actually combat poverty and this is why sometimes I challenge, you know, especially some of the judge rules or corporations, because it's just two corporates got challenged corporations, not the capitalist system yeah, what they do is create a bunch of laws that rig the system and if they want to use the energy more productively.
Speaker 1:You protest against those corporations and you know they almost have fun these things. And yeah, I'm not for the whole. I'm fine with protests. It's not that whole violent overtaking and getting rid of America and, you know, just destroy and reconstruct it to their image. Not for that, not for that. That's why I could never be so. I could never consider myself a progressive or even a far left side.
Speaker 1:I get some of your criticisms, I get it. There's just some problems with it that I'm just not. I'm pretty loyal to the Constitution. I mean, yeah, I criticize the right on some things. Are they extreme, right, that are the problem? Well, problem, of course they are. The only thing is, I think, the problem, the media. I think you alluded to this a little bit. They're more focused On the far right.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:A lot of them turn A blind eye Against the more radical left-wing personalities. Well, that's why they got alternative media that lean right to expose those people.
Speaker 1:I wish news could be more. We can go back to more objective news that could show what's the good, the bad, the ugly on both sides. That's the kind of news I would want. I'm happy that there's actually papers and even subscriptions that are working on that. Those should grow because they give a more fair perspective on what's going on. So just saying William, excuse me, for example, is a white supremacist because he supports Donald Trump, of course that's propaganda. That's sensationalism. That's of course that's propaganda. That's sensationalism. That's evoking disgust, anger from their audience, which is mostly left-leaning people, moderate and left-leaning people. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have three black grandchildren. I would take a bullet for any one of them. So the idea that because I'm a conservative, I'm therefore a fascist is complete lunacy. That's part of the one of the themes that I hope people get out of the book is this idea that you know we can certainly take the bucket called white supremacy, christian nationalism, and call it out for what it is, but I think we enter dangerous territory when we say that conservatism equals white supremacy or conservatism equals Christian nationalism. I reject that idea. It's equally absurd to say that liberalism equals socialism, slash Marxism. Of course it does not.
Speaker 2:Kennedy was a liberal and when you look, going back to the Kennedy administration, I mean, is there any bigger evidence that he was a patriot than going toe-to-toe with Nikita Khrushchev? And Nikita blinks first. And the Cuban Missile Crisis is resolved without a nuclear war. You know what would happen in our current era if somebody put nuclear missiles in Cuba. Anybody ever think about that? What would we do now? Would we be willing to go toe-to-toe with whatever belligerent were to try and do that again? And I don't know the answer to that question. Yet here was Kennedy, you know, in the second year of his presidency and he has this crisis that almost ends the world.
Speaker 2:Very, two distinct world views obviously went toe to toe. You had Marxism going toe to toe against a constitutional republic, a capitalist economic system, and Kennedy was a fan and a patriot of our Constitutional Republic and the capitalist system. We can, you know, we're not here to hash out Kennedy's faults. I mean, we all know them, they're all over the place, I mean. But you know, let Hughes, without sin, cast the first stone. Okay, but the fact is that Kennedy was a huge patriot and I don't know what would happen in our modern era. I will say this about President Biden I think that he is also a strong patriot. I really believe that in my heart of hearts, even though I didn't vote for him. But I do believe that there are people counseling him, either blatantly not patriots at all, or far less of a patriot than President Biden and certainly President Kennedy. I will say that for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the Republicans are referred to them as caretakers or something that guide them around, influence them, and you know, you know I don't take joy just looking at Biden's cognitive decline. It's really just sad, really. I mean, biden was never going to get my vote regardless. Because I just sat out that 2020 election Because I thought both candidates were dysfunctional for different reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But yeah, but Biden's cognitive decline, it was like no job. I think if I were to take back probably some of my old podcasts I would ease on the insulting. But you know I rarely did that. So I was calming down a little bit because you know what it could be someone I know and you know there's like a link, like a minor genetic history of dementia in my family. So I got to be more cognizant of that. I got to be more alert of that. A minor genetic history of dementia in my family. I got to be more cognizant of that. I got to be more alert. Can?
Speaker 1:I disagree with Biden and his policies. Yes, was there a few good things he did? Yes, he did. I just wish he would have fought against corporations harder. That would actually have got my vote, because corporations are too big and too powerful. There's a recent judge ruling that is saying that the Google monopoly is illegal. They control search engines and all that, so we have some big clout. Finally, the courts are challenging the corporations because that was my big concern.
Speaker 1:So I don't care if you're a Democrat, republican or majority, I just think, just challenge corporations. That's just me going off the rails a little bit. Let me get back to the topic at hand. Yeah, there are Democrat patriots for sure. Not every single Democrat is, I'm sure you already say Kennedy, biden, you're of course aware of this. But the Republican TV personalities I laugh at some of them because they just very sensationalize some of them and they're not helping either. They say, oh, all the lefts are communists, or they all like weird, or they all like children and things like that. And then the left got their nonsense so that all right-wingers are racist. They're all psychotic, gun-loving people that will hunt anyone that doesn't look like them, which is nonsense too.
Speaker 2:Both sides spew sensationalized nonsense.
Speaker 2:That's the theme in the book too is that in 2061, all this tribalism gets really pigeonholed in the three labels that this character, devin Cyrus, has championed and really deeply ingrained it into the psyche of America. So the three labels, of course, being the cons, clns, the mods MODS and the libs. And only he's successfully turned the cons label into a pejorative. So if you know, if you're, if you know, over half America is calling historically a left of center range. You know you had Bill Clinton try to go hard left and then he loses Congress and then Newt Gingrich comes in with his Contract with America program, which accomplished much, I mean from a political science standpoint. What a great study to see what happened in Bill Clinton's presidency once he had to come back to left of center and govern from that position in a bipartisan way. And they got a lot of stuff done for the American people when they did that.
Speaker 2:But in the book, of course, the future president wants to take this dial and just move it all the way over to the left, the needle, all the way over to the left, and he does this under this Trojan horse scenario and he's taken the mods. The mods in the book are what I would say, are traditional Democratic Americans, patriotic, constitutional, loving Americans, and he's taken them all and put them in a label called the Maz. And it's the Libs or the hard left wing that has now assumed power. And the Maz are not in the book, are not viewed derogatorily. As long as they go with the program, then everything's cool. The cons, on the other hand, are saying no, no, no. We are a constitutional republic, we wish to remain a constitutional republic and we don't want any part of a socialist economic model, we don't want any part of Marxist ideology or a Marxist government. And so that's what starts the snowball effect in the book that leads to. You know well the subtitles right there Civil War 2.0.
Speaker 1:And to add to that large waves of secession for so many states, especially con-dominant states. I'm using terminology in the book and I'm just saying I think this socialist president. He even targeted bonds that seemed like they were cons too, because some of them went to education camps. I caught that detail as well.
Speaker 2:And I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1:That was going to happen because it's like he says I wasn't going along with the program. Some were questioning the program, some were hesitant, so even molly speaking against it.
Speaker 2:The education camp right, right, right they were just like the con, you know, in disguise right and in writing the story at the, at the very of the story or the end of the book. Really, I wanted to give some very insightful links for people to go to and read these stories that were in the news that either very strongly tied into themes in the book or had a connection to themes in the book in some way or form or shape or form. And, of course, if you have the Kindle version, you just click the link. It'll be in the e-book version, but obviously the paper version you have to type it in very carefully. But the point being is that there are so many stories that came out when I was writing the book and the theme was already, you know, in one of the chapters I was either currently writing or one of the previous chapters I'd previously written. It was actually kind of spooky to have these stories come out during the whole process. And then there were stories that came out that touched upon themes that was already here, that I was getting ready to to type, you know, into a future chapter, and so, uh, you know there was a story about, you know, hillary Clinton, clinton wanting to send MAGA supporters to re-education camps. I was, wow, she actually said that.
Speaker 2:And there was a story in the New York Times, an opinion piece by Harvard and Yale law professors, who both wrote in an opinion piece and it's one of the links at the end of the book. They both wrote that the Constitution was broken and unfixable. And I thought, oh, my word, that's why we have amendments to the Constitution. They've been tweaking the Constitution since the Republic was founded via amendments to the Constitution. So to come into such a major newspaper, viewed by and read by, you know, literally millions of people around the world, literally, and to come out saying, yeah, our Constitution is broken, it can't be fixed, that's crazy, that's crazy talk.
Speaker 2:And one thing I wanted to do too for the readers, especially readers like yourself that are moderate or left of center I want to make sure that the stories that were cited at the back of the book, that none of them were from fox News, because I know half the country doesn't trust the mainstream media and the other half doesn't trust Fox News, and so I made sure that these links were from mainstream media sources because of their relevance, the plot of the book and the themes in the book, and there's so many of them. You know one of the book and the themes in the book, and there's so many of them. You know, one of the stories was about a gymnastic group in seattle. They were wearing american flag shirts and they were told they were triggering people and offending them and they were forced to cover up their team jerseys because they had the american flag at it. I'm I'm like, wow, well, where is this?
Speaker 2:You know, there's people that want to get rid of the American flag and there's people who want to tear down statues of historical figures, even you know, even Abraham Lincoln. I mean my word, you want to get rid of Lincoln. He saved the Union, he emancipated the slaves. Why would you want to get rid of Lincoln? I mean, you can make an argument for some of the others, but you know, and all this stuff, let me interject with the statues.
Speaker 1:Let me interject with the statues, because there's a lot I've got to say about that. That really actually pissed me off when. I saw that Abraham Lincoln said he's the one that accelerated freeing a bunch of slaves.
Speaker 1:I mean initially that was his intention. He wanted to preserve the Union. But still the impact was he freed a bunch of slaves and you know who kind of set up that trend and I'm going to use the cool word for the kids In the DL download George Washington. He was dying. He freed his slaves because he knew Eventually that was become a boiling point Issue.
Speaker 1:And they defaced him and damaged his statue. You know what you should be attacking A statue and things like Margaret Sanger, who was a eugenist and a proven racist, who said negative things About dark skinned people Alright.
Speaker 2:Who was a eugenist and a proven?
Speaker 1:racist. Okay, who said negative things about dark-skinned people? All right.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1:But I won't even attack that. You want to know why. We need to know the good, the bad, the ugly of history. So that's why we have to know the ugliness of history, even slavery history, so that we will not repeat the lessons again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and in writing the story I was very careful, I got worked up.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. No, it's all right.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it, I appreciate your passion, but in writing the book I was very conscious in putting some of the ugly warts of American history in there, especially in Chapter 1, where you have the president of Texas talking about Texas's involvement in slavery in the early part of the 19th century you know, before the Civil War and so those are in there and they're in there as a lesson for all of us really, that when you talk about America and its history you have to acknowledge the ugly parts and the warts and all I call it. But you can't and shouldn't try to erase the memory of them and the history of them, because how are you going to learn from your mistakes if you're not teaching future generations what those mistakes were and how we remedied them? And so you talk about our current era and you know the mistakes that have people all upset, and you know parts of the country, even considering socialism and their attacks on capitalism. I'll say this so capitalism is the greatest economic system ever invented in the history of the world. But capitalism has a cancer and the cancer is greed. And greed can be legislated away, it can be regulated away, and there's a way to do that, and smart minds smarter than me should be able to come together and figure out how to do that and not have the concentration of wealth that is extreme right now at the top.
Speaker 2:There's nothing wrong with accumulating wealth I mean, that's all part of the American dream. There's nothing wrong with accumulating wealth, don't get me wrong. But when you have the excessive accumulation at the expense of workers' wages or their retirement programs or whatever, then that's a problem. There's a verse in Scripture where it says to pay the worker their wages. I think it's more than just paying them something. You know, when the Lord tells us that, I think he's referring to paying them what they're due. You know so somebody's you know doing their due and doing a good job. You know. Pay them what they're due, not what you think you should have to pay them just in order to continue hoarding wealth for yourself or for the top level executives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's what breeds this appeal to socialism. Correct, you know this, you know this, this widening income inequality gap, and that's what breeds it. People don't see hope. That's why I even said it. For even Look, left-wingers, if you're going to try to provide alternative paths to jobs and all that, I'm for it. Just don't have to just stay on welfare for the rest of their lives or something. Create a ladder for them to get some share of that glorious American pie. Don't make me do too much. Get my step one, two, three and then four or five. They have to start figuring some of it out on its own and if they fall back down, help them create more economic opportunities.
Speaker 1:That's why I support in general.
Speaker 1:I think the more opportunities, the better. It'll definitely lessen crime. It'll definitely lessen crime. It'll definitely lessen this appeal Of socialism and communism, and that's stuff I know from history, Since I'm a history person. That's why I was able to personally Enjoy this book and Was able to read through. I mean, certain details are still a little fuzzy For me because, to be honest, I had to kind of I try to say as much time as to be honest. I try to set as much time as I can for those books. I want to make sure I get as much understanding in a limited amount of time. But no, it's great reading people you should read, especially if you are, if you want to get an idea with a bad future could be if you don't do something about it, because it's fast to try to lose them and your history buff. All you love realistic based fiction I guess I was just going to call it like that and fiction eventually becomes reality. I mean, look up sci-fi Cell phones. We consider fantasy. We got them.
Speaker 2:The virtual smartphone.
Speaker 1:So you know, in a weird way these fictional things could become reality. But I don't want it for this case of this book, Not for this book, not for this book. Okay, you want to make sure that, just to put it jokingly, this author was kind of nutty and kooky, but at the same time he was teaching us a lesson if we don't do anything about it. Really he's a creative teacher. Let me be serious.
Speaker 1:We want to keep this book, like I said, in a category called fiction, keeping fiction permanently. We don't want this to become a reality because the way this current trajectory is going, it can become reality. I'm surprised you say 2061. Me, I thought it would be by 2040.
Speaker 2:I have to say I did it intentionally, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking, oh my gosh, you know this could happen a lot sooner than 2061.
Speaker 2:But I put it out there intentionally because the goal really is to get people on either side of the political spectrum to to get this book read it, ingest it, dwell on, dwell upon it and figure out okay, what can I do from an individual perspective to contribute towards lowering the temperature, to listening the other side and and making sure that any part of the scenario that's in this book never, ever, comes true, ever, and so in that way it's a deterrent.
Speaker 2:As you correctly point out too, there is some history in there. There's to educate people about the Constitution, our founding documents, and parliamentary, parliamentary procedures and so on and so forth, and freedom of the press. These are all themes that are touched upon in the book and you also touched upon it earlier too, Elias is the idea of. You know, in a very subtle way. It's not preachy, it's not proselytizing, but there is a subtle thread in there that tries to point people back to God, which I think is a very important thing for me personally and I think would help lower the temperature down in our discussions with our fellow Americans.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, absolutely. I noticed that too. I'll say there's a good amount of pointing to God. I think that's wonderful and for those of you who want to be offended by it, you need to handle your demon. Go get help with that, because God wants to help you. God really wants to help you. You have to be ready to receive the help. You have to be ready to follow some spiritual laws. I'm not going to make this too spiritual. I can't easily, because I do have some spiritual background. I'm not going to make this too spiritual. I can't easily, because I do have some spiritual background as well. I am not going to do that, but I do believe the importance of God because I see what's going on At this point.
Speaker 1:New York City we are drifting away from God. Look what's going on. We was doing good leading to 2010, to by the time we hit like 2014-15,. I started seeing the decline because I was against this mayor since day one and this is why I started noticing I am not as Democrat as I think and I will start voting more red because I already seen it. I studied my history. He got influenced with Sandinista. I said, no, that's a communist group in Latin America. No, no, no, no, no no, no.
Speaker 1:That's disturbing to me. And, yeah, he ruined the city. And it's worse. This mayor, who is not doing any better either, he's more of a bot compared to the other mayor who is not doing any better either. He's more of a bot compared to the other mayor, eric Adams.
Speaker 1:He's not doing such a good job. He's more like a regular corporate cop Democrat who's pretty corrupt himself. But the other mayor was definitely. He was definitely unlit. If you want to use your book, he was definitely. He was definitely unlit. If you want to use your book, serenality, he was definitely lit. He was definitely leaning socialism. You know he tried to deny it, but his tendencies and some of his policies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, I would say at least small bites of socialism, just to put it like that you know and other cities I'm sure we got other cities got this problem as well, maybe more, more, or you know more or less the same, or it's. It's just people. You gotta learn history. I'm not trying to demonize one side of the aisle, but if they're extremes, if they're extreme right, I've condemned them to what? Their craziness the extreme right I've condemned them to their craziness. They goofed us. Because I'm trying to calm down some of this as a centered, independent voter, I think it's best there are Democrats that give my votes, there are Republicans that give my votes. I think they're trying to be an adult in the room and make deals. All of that, I mean let's just put back to the election. I mean very recently, some of these progressives are losing the primaries. Cori Bush of.
Speaker 2:Missouri. I just saw that today she lost her primary yesterday to more moderate Democrats.
Speaker 1:Jamal Baldwin my state of New York. The extension of the squad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're losing.
Speaker 1:They will be considered the libs in the book. Definitely Bernie Sanders. He's like the king of the socialists and the American politics. Bernie Sanders is the prime example. I think the moderate would have been me. Maybe Kevin McCarthy would have thrown him in there. Definitely Mitt Romney, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins is more like the moderate. They would definitely throw him to the moderate because they're too moderate for the conservative camp and then for the left side.
Speaker 2:I'm still a Romney fan. I thought he would have made a great president at the time, but of course it didn't happen. But as a conservative myself, I bristle at this trend to use the term rhino and take great patriots like Mitt Romney and somehow make them out to be something that they're not, which is ridiculous. I mean, mitt Romney is equally as patriotic as any recent president that we've had on both sides of the aisle. So same with Murkowski. So yeah, I bristle at that tendency to do that.
Speaker 2:I think that's part of the poison, poison of tribalism. It's so, it's so rigid. You know, you gotta be in this bucket and you, if you got one thing, you're sticking out. Sorry, you know you're out of the club. You know, and, uh, you know it, it's a good thing that there are independents in the country because historically it's been the independents that have brought the pendulum back. I mean, when it goes too far in one direction, the independents step in and say no, not too far. And it goes too far in the other direction, the independents step up and say no, not too far, come back.
Speaker 2:And I think that's probably what you saw with Bowman and the gal in Missouri, corey Brooks the pendulum went too far, too far to the left, and moderates and independents said no, no, no, you're way too radical. We're going to bring you back here, meaning the district, of course, that they voted in, and so it's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out for the rest of the election cycle, up and down the ballot. If that's a canary in a coal mine, those two primaries, then you know that's going to be very telling come november what happens. So we'll, let's wait and see.
Speaker 1:See what happens yeah, yeah, for sure yeah, because. And the opponent that beat it, cory bush? Yeah, he's a young black gentleman yeah, he was definitely more moderate.
Speaker 1:I read his profile briefly yeah, he was definitely more moderate. He was definitely, um, he does favor the israel on the side of the conflict. So, yep, a pack is influence, which I don't blame the progressives for criticizing, um, that part of it I well. It comes to jamal bowman. I think he was going to lose even without Apex and Adventure, because he lost by 17 points, which is huge to a moderate. I like George Latimer, so I'm happy that he won, I was actually happy about that.
Speaker 2:He was very irresponsible.
Speaker 1:on Jamal Bowman, I was happy that he lost the primary.
Speaker 2:Where do you live in New York?
Speaker 1:The city or the state I live in New York. The city or the state, the city I live in the city, but he doesn't represent me directly. I was just happy that Westchester County got a more grown-up. Who's going to get things done? He's a very big name, george Attenborough because he's an.
Speaker 1:A-lister, so I knew he was going to win. But with the eight APAC money it was a blow. I think he would have won without it. That's my theory. I think the margin of victory would have been small. I think he would have won by 7 points instead of 17, corey Bush, I think. If APAC support didn't come in, I think the moderate would have lost Because the victory margin Was only by 6 points. So that's not a big margin. Right there I would say like 5 or less is a small margin. Six to ten is moderate, the more than ten is pretty big.
Speaker 1:At least that's my measurement. People could debate that. There's a comment section for that Debate that, if you want.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so maybe there's some correction. I call that a correction. When it's going too radical, I decide it gets pulled back to the center. Yeah, I call that a correction. When it's going too radical, I decide it gets pulled back to the center and I try to do that. But I'm very unsuccessful In New York because New York is still pretty blue, it's a pretty blue state, and states like Utah I'll be unsuccessful there too, because that's a very red state. So I throw in a counter the problem side of it. They got their states where they have strong control right there.
Speaker 2:The presidential election for the last couple of weeks, all the news that's been going on there. What's your?
Speaker 1:take. Well, I've been very I've been very critical of well let's. I'm going to organize it like this it's already been established that Trump picked JD Vance. I personally think that's a mistake. I think that's ruining his chance to win. I'll be honest, he's not media savvy. Almost every time he speaks there's internet memes. The media is attacking him. I'll say a lot, and some of the Democrat insults are sticking to JD.
Speaker 2:Vance.
Speaker 1:I mean Trump could fight back verbally. I mean we all know that, especially 2016. I took down some of the biggest names in Republican politics at that time. I'm not to exert Trump there, but I think he made a mistake picking JD Vance. He had better vice presidential picks. If he would have picked someone like Tulsi Gabbard, she would definitely draw in more independents. When you pick a VP, you need to draw in. You need to broaden your base. Stop trying to please your established loyal support. You've got them.
Speaker 2:You've got to expand.
Speaker 1:And the other one, Kamala Harris. Her first pick is the current minnesota governor, tim waltz yeah, he's quite interesting he's.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if he moderates the ticket, maybe, except for the veteran he's pro-veteran, I think that's a very good thing for a democrat to be very pro veteran because because republicans, republicans easily throw the attack. Oh, they're unpatriotic, they're communists, they want to destroy America. So I guess there's some defense there. But there are some policies you push and how you handle the riots. I can see Republicans have a lot of golden ammunition to attack there.
Speaker 2:So it's going to be interesting. Yeah, the whole riot thing is going to be an issue, I think, because if you're the governor, at least from a state perspective, to borrow Harry Truman's phrase you know the buck stops here, and so I can see one day a riot, but then four days of riots and you've got a very minimal to non-existent response to it. That's, that's got to raise a lot of questions and I think that will probably come up in a vice presidential debate, which is going to be interesting, because even though Vance is obviously a conservative, he is quite intelligent. I saw some quotes from some of his professors out east and they were highly impressed with his level of intelligence and he's also a very learned constitutional scholar. So it's going to be interesting.
Speaker 2:You know, combat veteran, but also he's got that folksy thing. You know, obviously veteran but also he's got that folksy thing. You know, obviously Trump's an East Coaster and four with a silver spoon in his mouth, but the ants grew up dirt poor, so he's got a little bit of a folksy element going on. So you've got, you know, on the one side you've got the older guy nominee with the young vice presidential candidate kind of folksy and on the other side you've got the young gal, relatively speaking, with the older vice presidential candidate, so it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.
Speaker 1:I don't look at it that way. Wow, see, that's why I love talking to different people Expands my view on things. I really don't look at it that way. I'm just trying to look at, quote, quote political pragmatism in quotes, because I'm just usually losing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was surprised that she didn't pick either Shapiro or the governor of North Carolina, but what was really causing some buzz over the weekend was Mark Kelly from Arizona. Out of all of them, I think Mark Kelly probably would have given her like a 10-point boost in the polls because of just his background. And talk about balancing the ticket because he's definitely a patriot, he's a veteran and, of course, an astronaut. As you know, even though the government of Minnesota is a veteran, his policies are very closely aligned with Camilla and so, from a perspective of policy and the political dial where it's at, I think they're so close to one another they're almost going to be undetectable by the voter. So I don't know, we'll have to see how it plays out.
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, talk about Tim Walz's policies. I think they both are failing to get the moderate based on that, and that's what my focus is You've got to get the moderate, you've got to get the independents, but to your point, I definitely want to keep the whole moderating the ticket, because I think that's important.
Speaker 2:I think they both missed the mark on that one. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. It's going to be a very defined election as far as there's no fuzziness on either side. You don't have two different needle points, if you want to call it on the left or the right. They're both very closely aligned with the presidential candidate, and so for the voter, it's going to be interesting to see how the voter responds, because you know it's two very, very clear choices, this election, very clear, and we'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in terms of being objective, moderate, they both don't. They both, they missed the mark and I think it's sad, but it does point out and it supports so far, the theory of book of this tribalism is going further apart. Yep, yep, yep so come on on people, come on Americans. We've got to prevent this bad future. I'm very serious here. I don't love to laugh at. I have a dark sense of humor here, but this could be a potential reality If you don't get this right.
Speaker 2:I agree, and.
Speaker 1:Political parties are definitely one source of cancer Greed. I like that. That greed is the cancer of capitalism. Capitalism is not evil itself, and that's what I'm trying to tell some of my just you're lifting people yeah some get it.
Speaker 1:Some are just dismiss me, scoff me off, that's all hell. You're a right winger. Oh, it's okay stupid. You want to. You want to tell yourself that. Go right ahead. Yeah, I don't beg. I don't beg for people to listen, and you know what's a good part. You don't need every single person to believe you, so you have to deal with some rejection and some conversations are going to fail. You just got to accept that and move on. Don't give up, though Don't give up.
Speaker 1:There's even a biblical quote for that. Dust your feet and move on they don't want to listen he or she don't want to listen just go to the next one you don't need every single person you don't need every single person. I would tell a left wing person. He said you don't need every single person. No, usually enough people. I think some left wing kid. I won't be surprised if he's a socialist. I'm not going to say his name, but for those of you who are loyal listeners, you know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:Speaking of listeners, I would like to invite your listeners obviously to get the book and, more importantly, to really read it and ingest the story, because it is a very powerful story that I think both left and right will find very compelling, particularly if they would describe themselves, as you know, lovers of our Constitution.
Speaker 2:And even if not, if they've, you know, they've already started to dip their toes in Marxist ideology. I would really caution them to take a step back, at least read this book and really take a long hard, look in the mirror and say do we really want to do this? And the other thing would be to, you know, obviously buy the book and leave a review to help the sales, to help the message of the book spread, obviously through the selling of the book and promoting the book through reviews and word of mouth, et cetera, et cetera, because I really do think that it is a timely book for our time and it's not just an instrument of entertainment. Obviously, a lot of fiction books can be just an instrument of entertainment. This is more than that. I really believe that there are powerful lessons in this book that, again, both sides can take away with and help lower the temperature and contribute towards a solution whereby none of the scenarios in this book ever come true. Contribute towards a solution whereby none of the scenarios in this book ever come true.
Speaker 1:So I hope that your readers will take that to heart and pick up a copy, and if you don't, I think it was just a general picture. Remember the first Civil War? Remember the first Civil War? It was fought with guns and we didn't have nuclear weapons and modern weapons that could disrupt societies.
Speaker 2:Okay, yep, that's right and I mentioned that in the book. I mean, the idea of a second Civil War on American soil with modern weaponry is just, it's unthinkable of the carnage that could be wrought against our own citizens in such a scenario, against our own citizens in such a scenario. That's why we all have to, left and right and in the center, endeavor to, to our part, contribute towards a political tone and discussion and posture, and even socially, the tone and posture where this just doesn't happen, it can't happen because it would be hurtful Absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's all I'm going to say without giving much. You already got the sample of the book and I'm going to keep it as a sample. There's a lot of valuable lessons, historical references. Don't just take his word for it. There's a lot of proven truths.
Speaker 2:You can read Elias' review in a week or two when he puts it up on Amazon. Right, elias? Yeah?
Speaker 1:That and you know, and check those links too. Check those links as well, especially when you're done reading the book to see what germinated this.
Speaker 2:Those are links, those links are powerful and, like I said, they're not Fox News links. So if your listeners are left, I said they're not Fox News links. So if your listeners are leftist-center, they're not Fox News links and they're very relevant to the general storyline of the book and various themes in the book Very, very relevant. So check it out.
Speaker 1:And let's not forget his loosely tied to his first book.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know because you want to give him a double support. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Listen, he's not a huge writer, but he makes up with quality.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's quality is what matters.
Speaker 1:He has to be able to write 20 books of junk. You know I don't care, but that doesn't impress me as much. A lot of books are junk. Let's just be honest. You know, these are just instruments of entertainment. I'm going to use your nice, decoric language I call them paper-filled junk. Yeah, yeah, you know this is his second book. Okay, let's just keep that in mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for the kudos. Yeah, if, thank you for the kudos. If your listeners go to Amazon, you can either search for my name, william R Douglas, and you'll see my two books, including the one we've been Talking about here in your show, the Sum of All Our Anger. You'll also see the baseball book. But, yeah, check it out. I've also got a website, authorwilliamrdouglascom, and there's links out there Back to both books. Plus, you can see other podcast interviews I've been on. There will be a link there for politically high tech.
Speaker 1:So, once it's available, so that I mean do you have any social medias?
Speaker 2:yeah, facebook. You can look me up on Facebook and also on X, so I'm out there. Author williamrdouglas.
Speaker 1:I refuse to call that thing Social medias. Yeah, Facebook. You can look me up on Facebook and also on X. So I'm out there. I'll throw William R Douglas. I refuse to call that thing X. I still call it Twitter. I'm part of that crowd. Yes, I'm erotic on that one.
Speaker 2:It's like Kleenex versus tissue paper. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It'll always be Twitter.
Speaker 2:The Sears Tower in Chicago will always be the Sears Tower, even though it's Been the Willis Tower for I don't know 15, 20 years. We still call it the Sears Tower.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know, I remember that name. I remember that name. They change it. Sears Tower just seems more distinct. Willis is just. I guess that's just a common name. You know so many things. I can think of Willis. I won't think of a tower. I can think of Metz, Willis Point. You know where the Metz Stadium is as a New Yorker. So that's not going to help a New Yorker like me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, so I'm going to be a young boomer if this won't go with Sears Towers. Boomer just won't go with Sears Tower. You know, I think the Sears store is dying, so they could capitalize that name now.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:It's a shame. Yeah, so yeah, sears is more distinct, unique and brandable. That's my thinking here. If you're going to take a generic name. My brain does not compute that.
Speaker 2:As a radical, it comes with that. It just throws it out, it violently ejects it.
Speaker 1:Right, so all right. So follow him on social medias as well for updates, maybe even a little conversation. Absolutely If you have questions, you know, get in contact with him, get his thoughts, make his brain virtually, not literally, okay. So it's not going to be gross about the people and that's what I'm going to say about it. So, final follow-up Is there anything else?
Speaker 2:you want to add before I wrap this up. Well, I've had a lot of fun on the show. Elias, thanks again for having me on, and I hope your listeners enjoy the show too, and I'm sure we'll touch base again in the future.
Speaker 1:Yep, all righty then. From wherever and whenever you listen to this podcast, you have a blessed day, afternoon or night bye, thank you.
