0:01

There's no better example of the rot

0:03

of leftist policies, of progressive

0:05

policies than our cities. Crime,

0:08

homelessness, drugs.

0:11

Seems like America is just falling apart.

0:13

We'll talk to Jason Rants. He wrote the book

0:15

on it. The book's called What's Killing America

0:17

Inside the Radical Lefts Tragic

0:19

Destruction of Our Cities. He covered

0:22

the summer of riots being in

0:24

Seattle, witnessing what happened with the chop

0:26

zone as in teetha on Black Lives Matter. It literally

0:29

took over blocks and parts

0:31

of the city of Seattle. We'll get into all that

0:33

with him. You've seen him on Fox News. He's

0:35

also a radio host as well, so

0:38

stay tuned for Jason Rants. Well,

0:45

Jason, it's awesome to have you on the show.

0:48

I appreciate you making the time.

0:49

No, I appreciate you inviting me.

0:51

You know, see, you wrote a book about what's

0:53

killing America. Well, a lot

0:55

of things right now by this book,

0:58

Yptoe Biden, the board like the

1:00

list goes on. But your book is about

1:02

what's killing our cities right

1:04

now? I mean, how bad is

1:07

it? And you know, was it covid

1:09

or It seems like everything has just gotten

1:11

exponentially worse in the past few years.

1:13

What's at the heart of it.

1:14

At the heart of it are radical left

1:17

policies that I think COVID

1:19

made them more obvious

1:22

what the the some cases

1:25

intended consequences of these policies

1:27

were and some of the unintended consequences. I think

1:29

COVID made a lot of things

1:31

worse. It certainly didn't help,

1:34

But at the heart of a lot

1:36

of the issues that so many

1:38

big cities are dealing

1:40

with and have been dealing with over the last several

1:42

years, they're the result of policy that has been

1:44

put in place even before COVID. Now,

1:47

obviously COVID gives a lot

1:49

of cover for the folks who are pushing for,

1:51

you know, so called criminal justice reforms,

1:53

which essentially did what

1:55

the BLM movement said it wanted to

1:58

do, which was dismantle systems

2:00

which they believe are oppressive

2:03

and have white supremacy culture

2:05

sort of intertwined in

2:08

every single aspect of the

2:10

criminal justice system to the point where they said, look, we've got

2:12

to break this down and we've got to rebuild it, and they

2:14

rebuild it in ways

2:16

that favored criminals instead

2:19

of the victims. There was this complete

2:21

shift in thinking that actually

2:24

was now institutionalized when

2:27

they decided to say that because this is a

2:29

system of oppression, the people who are caught

2:31

up in it are the actual victims,

2:34

not the real victims that you and I and everyone who's

2:36

listening would deem to be a victim, but

2:38

the actual criminals are now the victims. At

2:40

the same time, you saw a lot of policy

2:43

shifts in the way we live our

2:45

lives, the way we drive

2:48

to work, and how we get to work.

2:50

The fact of the matter is, you've got and

2:52

I break this down in the book in two parts. You have, on

2:54

the one hand, the policies

2:57

that directly impact

2:59

us and make us less safe and

3:01

less happy. And then you've got the

3:04

policies that tell us how to live, which also

3:06

tend to make us less safe and

3:09

less happy. And you see

3:11

this trend or theme,

3:13

I guess from different cities

3:15

all around the country, and they're coming from blue

3:18

cities. This shouldn't be a shock to

3:21

anyone. But what happens

3:23

in Seattle or New York or Chicago,

3:25

LA doesn't just stay there. It

3:28

spreads. And that's why I decided

3:30

to write this book. Was first

3:32

understand this is coming to your neighborhood if it already

3:35

hasn't. And second, let's make

3:37

sure we understand why this is happening,

3:39

the reason behind some of these policies, because

3:41

only then can we effectively

3:44

push back.

3:44

Well, it does seem like since George

3:47

Floyd, the left has adopted

3:49

this concept that it is somehow

3:51

racist to arrest criminals.

3:54

Yes, but I would argue we're

3:56

only noticing it in a significant way

3:58

now because the movement it's health became

4:01

mainstreamed. The folks

4:03

who took power during all of this and

4:06

were the most vocal, they were always

4:08

there, they just didn't get the spotlight. There

4:10

was a movement by the media

4:12

and corporations to embrace

4:15

the BLM activists and

4:18

all of the sort of the subgroups that came

4:20

along with it. And what we're pushing

4:22

very similar themes in the criminal

4:24

justice system as racist. We need to shift away

4:26

from the carcerole approach. And

4:30

the fact of the matter is, when you mainstream a movement

4:32

like this, you give it so much more power than it otherwise

4:34

would have, and then all of a sudden you're

4:37

seeing actual changes in policy.

4:39

You know, the defund movement itself

4:42

was always there. It just wasn't highlighted

4:45

the same way, and we didn't give it so much power.

4:47

And then all of a sudden, because of what happened

4:49

with George Floyd, which was condemned

4:52

across the country by basically

4:54

everyone, but we were told that not

4:56

enough was being done to prevent this from happening

4:58

in the future, even though it was one

5:01

instance, one of very few

5:03

instances in which something like this has happened

5:05

with modern day policing. And we

5:08

use that lie around the data,

5:10

around this claim

5:12

that the whole system is racist to

5:15

defund police and take away

5:17

responsibilities from them. And

5:19

even though right now we're starting

5:22

to see and have been seeing some course correction

5:25

in refunding police departments

5:27

or getting rid of some policy,

5:30

not all the policies have been removed. Some

5:32

of the politicians are talking about things in slightly different

5:35

ways and trying to get saying again,

5:37

or at least pretend to be saying again

5:39

so that they can win a reelection. But a lot of

5:41

those policies are still in place, and the culture that

5:43

shifted as a result, that doesn't

5:45

just change overnight. This culture of lawlessness

5:48

that has been imposed, that's going

5:50

to take arguably at least

5:52

a decade, possibly more

5:54

than that, just.

5:55

To fix what do you think is driving

5:57

that culture of willlessness.

5:59

Well, obviously we can point to specific policies.

6:02

The question is, well, why do they believe what they believe?

6:04

And I think you have a general

6:07

sense from radicals on the left.

6:10

I truly believe that they think these systems

6:12

are oppressive, purely

6:15

based on some raw data

6:17

that they are interpreting to fit a worldview.

6:20

So if you go into just

6:22

looking at the issue policing, and you go

6:24

into it and look at it through this critical

6:27

race theory lens or social justice

6:29

lens, you are taught to find

6:32

reasons why an institution

6:35

is racist, the whole idea behind CRT. And

6:37

this is another thing that has been there for the longest

6:39

time. We only started to label it CRT relatively

6:42

recently. But you are taught

6:45

to find pieces

6:47

of an institution that disproportionately

6:50

impact insert the marginalized

6:53

group that you want to focus on. It's usually around

6:55

black and Latinos. And what's

6:58

always funny to me is that

7:00

disproportionality arguments are the

7:02

laziest arguments ever. They'll say, well, look

7:04

at this, this police department has arrested.

7:07

Fifty percent of the arrestees

7:10

are black, but it's only representative

7:12

of six percent of the population. They

7:14

then assume it's due to racism.

7:17

They don't have any data to backup that it's

7:19

racist except for this disproportionality

7:22

argument, and they decided to ignore all

7:24

of the other data points that you would

7:27

obviously need to review and

7:30

you know, be honest about before jumping

7:32

to those conclusions. Because of that,

7:34

that instilled upon them

7:36

bias to look for racism

7:39

where it does not exist. And when you look

7:41

for something where it doesn't exist, it's very

7:43

easy to come up with it

7:46

actually existing because you're making it up. It's

7:48

a delusion and it's based on blind

7:51

ideology. And you know,

7:53

this is about so many other

7:55

issues too. It's not just about policing. But when

7:57

you look at what they've done in these major cities

8:00

on the issue of policing, criminal justice

8:03

reform in general, it's just so obvious

8:05

that we can connect the dots to the surgeon

8:07

crime and it's something that more

8:09

and more people are feeling, more and more people are

8:12

worried about.

8:13

It.

8:13

Sometimes takes cities

8:15

like a Seattle or Portland to

8:17

have a large population start

8:20

to either personally experience the crime

8:22

wave or know someone who has before,

8:24

they start to shift the way that they think

8:26

and start to look at these issues a lot differently

8:28

than they've looked at in the past.

8:30

The crime and city is it gets a lot of attention.

8:33

You know, we cover it on Fox News, especially

8:36

conservative outlets. How much

8:38

more dangerous are cities, you

8:40

know, truly than they were, let's say, even

8:42

before COVID.

8:44

Certainly if you judge it within the

8:46

last decade or so, it's more

8:48

dangerous. There's some folks who make the argument,

8:51

and I always find this to be somewhat disingenuous.

8:53

They'll say, well, it's not like what it was in the eighties,

8:56

and I agree, I don't argue,

8:58

and I don't think anyone is really arguing right now

9:01

that things are as violent or

9:03

as dangerous as they

9:05

have been at certain parts of our

9:07

past. But when we

9:09

look at where we live, we want to see forward

9:12

progression. We don't want to go backwards. And so

9:14

if all of a sudden things are

9:17

worse now than they were twenty

9:19

five years ago, or ten years ago

9:21

or five years ago, we should all be

9:24

pointing that out, because if you

9:26

don't get in the way of that backward

9:29

movement, it's just going to snowball and get

9:31

even worse and worse and worse, and then bam, all

9:33

of a sudden, it is the eighties. When you look

9:36

at just the Pacific Northwest, for example, and

9:38

obviously I live here, so you know, I follow

9:40

these numbers very closely. Seattle

9:43

and Portland had record high

9:46

homicide numbers in twenty

9:48

twenty, twenty twenty one, and twenty twenty

9:51

two, and these were higher

9:53

than the twenty five or twenty six year

9:56

previous high. Now, is it as

9:58

bad as forty years ago. No,

10:01

but it's bad. And when you're hitting those kinds

10:03

of records and you know specifically

10:06

that we can tie it to policy, I

10:08

view them as crimes that were easily

10:11

preventable. So when you have a policy

10:13

that's responsible for a crime being committed,

10:15

that's a preventable crime. We made

10:18

the choice to go in a certain direction that

10:21

led to someone becoming a victim,

10:23

and that's just unacceptable to

10:26

me.

10:26

Well, and you live in a city where you

10:28

know Antifa and you know writers

10:30

and Bilm actually took over part

10:32

of the city that the chop Zone.

10:35

I mean, what was that like to

10:37

live there at the time, and you know, get

10:39

into that a little bit.

10:40

Oh my gosh, it was so weird.

10:43

I have to be honest, because I was so I was covering

10:45

this for Fox News at the time, and this is the

10:47

main reason people even know who I am is because of

10:50

what I was doing during CHOP and as

10:52

I'm out there witnessing

10:54

the crime that's being committed, hearing

10:57

the way the activists are speaking,

11:00

and getting a better understanding of some

11:02

of the decisions that were made on the political side of things

11:04

that led to Chop lasting as long

11:06

as it did. I was hearing

11:09

other media outlets just gaslight

11:11

us as to what was going on, and

11:14

even for this book, going back and looking at some of the

11:16

coverage from like CNN or The New York

11:18

Times or The Daily Beast, it

11:20

was all positive. Oh it's like a street fair.

11:22

Oh, the businesses around the area love it because

11:24

they've been closed during COVID and all of a sudden,

11:27

more people are in the area. And I

11:29

was watching and reading the covers and

11:31

like, that's not what's happening. That's

11:33

not what I'm personally experiencing. And

11:36

I would get tweets or

11:38

emails from folks who were watching

11:40

me on Fox basically saying

11:42

I'm lying, I'm making up my reporting.

11:46

But it was surreal because I was literally showing

11:49

video right. It was like, here's a video of

11:51

the crimes that are occurring, and you're telling me that they're not. And

11:53

even locally, with a

11:55

few exceptions, the

11:58

violence or anything negativessociated

12:00

with the movement was not being discussed

12:02

or covered. And when you live in

12:05

a bubble, it's really really easy

12:08

to then tell yourself, oh, well, it's

12:10

just the conservative media outlets who hate Seattle.

12:12

They're the ones who are just making this all up

12:15

because they have an agenda. It's really easy

12:17

to fall into that trap. And you know,

12:19

Seattle, while it's not a huge

12:21

city, it is sort of like

12:24

any other city where you've got your neighborhoods, and if

12:26

you live in one neighborhood, you maybe don't go to this other neighborhood

12:29

all that often. And

12:31

when you're not getting that full coverage, and you're already

12:33

going into it with this bias against conservative

12:35

media, you are more susceptible

12:37

to some of the coverage. Some of it was intended

12:40

to give a pass to the violence. Because I think

12:42

a lot of reporters, both locally and nationally, supported

12:45

the movement, or at least wanted to be seen as supporting

12:48

the movement, so they wouldn't dare to be negative.

12:51

But some have their blinders

12:53

on as well. I think, you know, especially

12:55

the national media. They showed up during the

12:57

day when things were not bad,

12:59

and then they stayed in their hotel rooms at night, not

13:02

going into the Chop area, and they

13:04

didn't see all of what was happening, all

13:06

of what I saw.

13:07

I was reliably informed by

13:09

the former mayor of Seattle, Jenny

13:11

Durkin, that it was the summer of love. Sure,

13:14

are you telling me it was not?

13:16

Yeah, it was clearly unless

13:18

you love violence. I mean, look, at the end of the day, this

13:20

was a movement that was supposed to be about black lives

13:23

mattering, and it cost three black

13:25

teenagers their lives. Right, So we saw

13:27

death here. We saw an attempted

13:29

rape of a deaf woman

13:32

who was living within Chop. We saw

13:34

open drug dealing. We saw the distribution,

13:36

the illegal distribution of semi

13:39

automatic rifles, which the left tells

13:42

us they hate, except for when it was

13:44

being they were being distributed by

13:46

Antifa thugs in chop

13:49

So there was so much gaslighting

13:51

going on. There was a lot of politicking

13:53

going on. Jenny Durkin didn't want to get

13:55

blamed for this. She was finding herself

13:58

in a pretty difficult spot politically

14:00

where she didn't want to upset the

14:02

very vocal base and she didn't want

14:04

to be seen as being part of a movement that

14:07

was getting in the way of BLM,

14:09

and so she decided to, I

14:13

think guess that the situation wasn't

14:15

going to devolve. But it doesn't take a genius to

14:17

realize that when you take police out

14:19

of the picture and you hand over you

14:22

know, six city blocks to a group of radicals

14:24

who took it over with violence and

14:26

force, that it's going to

14:29

escalate into something incredibly

14:31

dangerous and in this case deadly.

14:33

Well, and that's why you know this is all intentional,

14:36

right, I mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure

14:38

out that, like, if you defund

14:40

the police, you're probably going to have more crime,

14:42

if you get rid of your playing closed police unit

14:44

like they did in New York City, or you know what I mean, it's

14:47

very common sense to understand

14:49

the impact of all these things. So it's with intention

14:52

that they're driving, you know,

14:54

these policies. But then the sad thing is, I

14:57

mean people keep voting for leftis

14:59

like what we saw in Chicago recently.

15:02

So you know, have you seen any movement in

15:04

any sort of awakening among the electorate

15:06

in some of these cities that the policies are voting

15:08

for are negatively impacting them.

15:09

It's a little bit mixed, right,

15:12

So there are instances in

15:14

which voters are at least pointing

15:16

out the problems in ways that they

15:18

previously didn't because they felt, I

15:21

think like they thought they would get bullied or

15:23

shamed for speaking up and saying

15:25

something, which has been the case in a lot of these

15:28

very far to the left cities like a Seattle

15:30

of Portland, San Francisco, for example. But

15:33

we're clearly seeing voters,

15:35

at least in some cases

15:38

making a decision to course correct.

15:40

I think if you go into San Francisco, and I also cover

15:42

this in What's Killing America, they made

15:45

a decision to recall Chesaboudin, who

15:47

was a George Soros wanna be. They

15:50

made the decision to boot

15:52

from office the school

15:54

board members who were eligible for recall

15:57

at that point because they decided to

15:59

focus more on the wokeism

16:02

than teaching kids. And so you've

16:04

got voters who are becoming

16:07

very aware, and in particular, we're

16:10

seeing are Asian Americans who

16:12

are stepping up and getting more active and saying

16:14

enough is enough. What you're doing here, whether

16:16

it's from a safety perspective

16:18

or education, is hurting our

16:21

families. It's hurting our children,

16:24

and we're not okay with that. And they

16:26

organize in significant ways,

16:29

and we've seen their successes.

16:32

Quick Commercial Break more with Jason Rants.

16:37

And there's also you know, the homeless problem.

16:39

You know, so my dad grew up in Portland,

16:41

Oregon, and I went out a few

16:44

months ago to go visit my grandmother who still

16:46

lives there. I mean, the homeless tends

16:48

even just reading about it does not do justice

16:51

what has taken place in that city. I mean, the

16:53

homeless have actually taken over the

16:55

city.

16:57

And we've seen it in pockets around

16:59

the kind of DC for a large

17:02

part of the last several years before they

17:04

started to embrace the sweeps was taken

17:06

over. I think LA in

17:08

San Francisco are just absolute

17:11

horror shows. Seattle as well, Portland

17:14

in particular, and part of the reason why

17:16

it's gotten so bad. Is

17:18

this sort of lase fare approach

17:21

that there's thinking that

17:23

suggests you can't stigmatize

17:25

folks by pointing out

17:27

that being homeless is a negative and

17:30

that their drug addiction is fueling

17:32

their homelessness. You're not supposed to say that because they might

17:34

feel stigma and then won't seek help.

17:37

But they know that they're

17:40

stigmatized by being homeless. These people

17:42

know what they're doing is killing

17:44

them. But especially when we're talking about drug addiction,

17:47

they're so overcome by

17:49

that addiction that they can't stop

17:52

themselves. They can't help themselves,

17:54

and rather than step in and sort

17:56

of push people into treatment, we're being

17:58

told that you have to have hands off until

18:00

they're ready for the treatment, otherwise it won't

18:02

work. But we know that that's nonsense. You need

18:04

a Carroden stick approach. Cities that

18:06

have adopted Carroden stick approaches

18:09

have been successful. We were also

18:11

told that this is a housing issue,

18:14

right and we still hear that that a

18:16

housing first model works the best, which

18:18

basically means we're putting you into housing

18:21

without any condition, so if you're a drug

18:23

addict, you can continue to use drugs. We just want

18:25

to get you in because that will be easier

18:27

for us to get you into treatment. And

18:30

a lot of activists point to

18:32

Salt Lake City because they approached as

18:35

a city in a very significant

18:37

way the Housing first model, and

18:39

they had declared it a huge success

18:41

that they got to functional

18:43

zero as far as homelessness

18:46

is concerned. And I always was

18:48

skeptical of that claim, but I'm

18:50

certainly open minded if housing first actually

18:53

works and is successful by reasonable

18:56

means. And I view success as getting someone

18:58

off the streets and then self efficient.

19:00

How long it takes can change. It depends

19:02

on the individual. But that's how

19:04

I view it as a success. And so I started looking

19:07

into what was going on in Salt Lake City and

19:09

found out it was a huge failure.

19:11

It was an utter failure. In fact, homelessness

19:14

continued to get worse after they

19:16

declared a functional zero homelessness

19:19

rate, and no one talks about

19:21

that. We just hear housing first all the time. It's

19:23

this bumper sticker talking point.

19:25

And so I actually I decided to devote

19:28

an entire chapter specifically to Salt

19:30

Lake City because I think it's

19:32

so instructive of what

19:34

doesn't work and how a lie

19:36

or slogan can end

19:38

up impacting for

19:41

a very long time the

19:44

approach I mean you have in California

19:46

right now, taking this exact line

19:49

right, it's we got to get people housing. It's

19:51

housing affordability issues are leading

19:53

to homelessness. But for the vast

19:56

majority of the people we're talking about, especially the chronically

19:58

homeless, it wasn't housing affordability

20:01

issue. It was a drug issue. It was a mental

20:03

health issue. That's what's keeping

20:05

these people on the streets, and simply giving them a home doesn't

20:07

treat the underlying reason why they became homeless

20:09

to begin with.

20:10

Are any cities successfully tackling

20:13

homeless problems and homeless crisis?

20:15

I see cities that are smaller

20:18

or mid size are doing it the I

20:21

think they're the most successful when you

20:23

look at San Diego, when you look

20:25

at portions of

20:27

Texas, including in Austin, where

20:30

if you give the resources

20:32

to the right groups, they have

20:34

seen success. When you

20:36

decide to just give money to the homeless industrial

20:39

complex, which whether

20:41

or not they want to acknowledge this doesn't

20:44

matter, but they lose funding

20:46

and they lose their living and livelihoods

20:48

when homelessness is fixed,

20:51

and so there is an incentive to keep

20:53

people homeless. I don't think they purposely

20:56

choose to keep people homeless, but I think it's a bias

20:58

that goes into their work and why it's been

21:00

so unsuccessful. I think a

21:02

city here in Washington, Marysville,

21:05

which really hit their crisis with

21:07

a carrot and stick approach, which basically said, look, we're

21:09

going to send the police out there. If you are

21:11

homeless and you are breaking the law, that officer

21:14

is going to give you a simple choice.

21:16

You can choose door number one, which is

21:18

go into treatment or take

21:20

us up on our resources that we're offering you, or

21:23

you're going to jail. That's door number

21:25

two. And yeah, you're going to be released tomorrow.

21:27

You're not going to go to jail for longer than a day.

21:30

But guess what, we'll be here tomorrow and

21:32

we're going to offer you that same choice, and we're

21:34

going to basically harass you until

21:36

you either make the right decision go into treatment, or

21:38

you just leave the city completely and you become someone

21:40

else's problem. They have seen actual

21:43

results when you put folks into

21:45

tiny home villages in which you have

21:48

responsibilities including paying

21:50

your rent and getting a job and holding

21:52

a job, those groups

21:54

see the most success.

21:56

I mean that makes sense, welfare to work

21:58

type mentality. What's

22:00

wild is we seem to be in this place

22:02

where, because of all the propaganda,

22:04

because the narrative is being pushed at people, that

22:08

leftists would almost rather live in danger

22:10

or be in danger than be labeled like a bigot

22:12

or something or racist. I mean, we saw this.

22:14

There's this video recently of a white guy sobbing

22:18

because the police are then going to arrest

22:20

a black man who was armed with a knife who

22:22

was allegedly threatening to stab his family.

22:24

But he's so besides himself because he

22:26

doesn't want to look like a racist by

22:29

having this black guy arrested, despite the fact

22:31

that the guy was allegedly brandishing

22:33

a knife and threatening his family. And

22:35

so it's sort of crazy that we have

22:38

arrived at this juncture

22:40

where you know, someone would almost rather be

22:42

at risk than to be labeled a racist.

22:45

But the funny thing is, like I understand

22:48

the concern there for some of these folks

22:50

who look you know it as

22:52

someone who goes on TV and talks about controversial

22:54

issues and you talk about them on your podcast,

22:57

you will get attacked for it, right, And the

23:00

average person who doesn't work in the media doesn't want to

23:02

have to deal with that. They don't want to have to deal

23:04

with the mob showing up to their home.

23:06

They don't want to deal with the doxing that

23:08

goes on on a regular

23:10

basis. To folks who

23:13

make even reasonable raise,

23:15

even reasonable concerns about what's

23:18

been going on in their neighborhood or

23:20

in an individual case like the one you just cited,

23:22

like you shouldn't have to fear being

23:25

doxed and harassed and bullied as

23:27

a result. And so it has

23:29

for the longest time led to people

23:31

not saying anything. And I think a perfect

23:34

example is what's going on with

23:36

school boards all across the country.

23:39

Parents weren't saying anything in large part

23:41

actually, at least to begin with, because they didn't realize

23:43

how bad things were in the classroom. And then

23:45

obviously when it went to remote learning. The one

23:48

positive that came out of that was a better

23:50

understanding of the propaganda and indoctrination

23:52

that is happening in schools. And

23:55

many still felt uncomfortable

23:57

speaking because they didn't want to be that person, right,

24:00

I didn't want to be the one person who would

24:02

stand up, But at

24:04

some point one person did decide to stand

24:06

up, and then all of a sudden, people realized, oh, wait

24:09

a minute, my views are actually

24:11

shared by more people in this community.

24:13

I maybe will speak up next time, and

24:15

that has a domino effect. And then when

24:18

you realize you're not an individual going up against

24:20

a vocal mob, you feel

24:22

a lot more comfortable and a lot more willing to speak

24:24

up and say something. But a lot of that also, I

24:27

think depends on where you live. It was much easier

24:30

for some folks in you know,

24:32

a Virginia or a Maryland, or

24:34

a Florida or a Texas than it is for

24:36

someone in a Washington, Oregon or California.

24:39

And isn't changing that

24:41

societal aspect, changing

24:44

you know, those viewpoints. I mean, that's a lot harder

24:46

to do than just make policy

24:48

changes, right, I mean to change the culture,

24:50

to change the society, to change the way we

24:53

have now been programmed to view things. I mean,

24:55

that's more difficult to do.

24:58

That's a cultural shift, and cultural

25:00

shifts don't just happen overnight.

25:02

It takes sustained pressure. It

25:05

helps when you have the media on your side, as

25:07

the radical left has had for the last several years.

25:09

In particular, the policy

25:12

changes can always be overturned,

25:14

right. You can refund a police department, you

25:16

can remove a policy

25:19

on sex education in the schools.

25:22

But what unfortunately

25:24

ends up happening is you end up

25:26

changing sort of the cultural

25:28

norms. From a crime perspective.

25:31

You basically told the criminals that they're going to be

25:33

viewed as victims. Don't worry, you're

25:35

not really going to do any jail time. And even

25:37

if you start to change that, you start to jail some

25:39

folks, it takes a long time for that shift

25:42

in thinking to materialize

25:44

and actually change behavior. Same thing with educators.

25:46

For the longest time, they got away with a

25:48

whole bunch of content

25:51

that they should not have been putting in front of kids. And

25:54

even when you've got a school board that ends up

25:56

deciding no, you're not going to do this anymore, you still have

25:58

the educators who are used to it, and they're

26:00

not just going to change because you change some policy.

26:02

You got to change the person in

26:05

that position by terminating them if they

26:07

continue to violate school

26:09

rules or district rules, or they have

26:11

to start to shift the way that they think. I

26:13

prefer that part rather than just firing people.

26:15

But the shift in thinking

26:18

is always going to be more difficult.

26:21

And even though I

26:23

focus on the cultural issues,

26:26

we can't understate how import

26:29

or overstate how important the policy changes

26:31

are. Because if I change a policy

26:33

on prosecutions and

26:37

the city or the county comes to their

26:39

senses and they vote that person out, well if

26:41

the policy still exists, you're

26:44

not going to really see any change at the state level.

26:46

When they change laws. And let's say

26:48

you go from a Democrat majority

26:50

to a split equal

26:53

the House as the Republican side the Senate has the

26:56

Democrats, well you still have those laws in place

26:58

that have fundamentally shifted everything, and

27:00

it's not going to be easy to overturn those laws.

27:02

So the cultural part is important,

27:05

and it's difficult to change culture, but

27:07

it's sometimes also difficult to change

27:10

laws or policies. And the

27:12

left talks a lot about institutionalized

27:14

isms. Well, they've just institutionalized

27:17

their ideology every time they changed

27:20

a law, and you can't just easily

27:22

overturn some of that.

27:23

Quick break more on what's killing our cities?

27:28

Why not leave Seattle.

27:30

Because you know I work here. The

27:33

thing is, I don't feel like

27:35

I should have to leave a city that

27:37

I live in and work in simply

27:40

because there are progressives

27:42

in charge who don't see things

27:44

the way I see things. Rather than give up on the

27:47

city, I like to continue

27:49

to be a voice here. I think, especially

27:51

in Seattle, really the Pacific Northwest in general, and

27:53

one could argue the West Coast, you don't really have

27:55

many conservative voices who are talking about

27:58

these issues in way that

28:00

are intended to get people to

28:03

change the way

28:05

that they're being forced to live. I find

28:07

value in that someone

28:09

needs to do it, so it might as well be me.

28:11

Why'd you decide to write the book?

28:12

I decided to write the book because I for

28:15

the very reason I decide to stay in

28:17

Seattle. I think it's important

28:19

to not just give up. I think

28:21

it's important for the folks who can't

28:24

just give up and move because they've got kids

28:26

or lives that are just so firmly

28:28

established. I think it's important to make

28:30

changes. I just find that

28:34

you can't adequately or

28:36

successfully change policy

28:38

or change minds when you don't

28:40

know why people think the

28:42

way that they think. And because

28:45

I think the media in general does such a

28:47

poor job in connecting dots between

28:51

a policy and initiative, a strategy, whatever

28:53

it happens to be, an ideology and an

28:55

end result. It's harder

28:57

for people to convince their friends and family

29:00

and neighbors to change the way

29:02

that they look at things. And so what

29:04

I do and what's killing America is I explain

29:06

what's going on. Of course, I explain the what, but

29:08

I explain the why. Why is

29:11

this happening? And why does one

29:13

side believe what it believes? And

29:15

armed with this knowledge, I think

29:17

everyday folks can go ahead

29:20

and actually engage in meaningful

29:22

conversations that changes minds with their

29:24

neighbors and their families and friends. I don't care what

29:26

the activist community thinks. I

29:28

honestly don't give a damn about what they say

29:31

or what they think. I'm never going to convince them

29:33

to change. But I can convince

29:35

my neighbor. I can convince

29:37

my uncle or my brother because

29:40

we have relationships and I

29:42

have easy access to speaking to them. And

29:44

all of us in our lives have those

29:47

people. And if enough of us actually step up and

29:49

have those conversations and start

29:51

to become our own activists,

29:54

when we do, that will win these battles. If we don't

29:56

we're going to continue to lose and we're going to continue to complain

29:58

about the cities we live in. And for the people

30:00

who can't just easily move out of their neighborhood

30:03

that is directly impacted right now, you

30:06

have to do something to change. And let's

30:08

be clear, this is going to continue

30:10

to spread. It is like a cancer. Radical

30:13

ideology frankly on either side of the

30:15

aisle will spread and does spread.

30:17

So you might think that you are escaping

30:20

something if I were to leave SEAL. Let's say I were

30:22

to go to Florida. Yeah, it's great right now,

30:24

but if you're not on your toes, things

30:27

can change rather quickly, and I

30:29

want to arm people with that knowledge.

30:31

Is there anything else you'd like to leave us with before we

30:33

go?

30:33

I would say, just hitting

30:35

back on that theme, people have way

30:38

more power than they realize to

30:41

impact the decisions that are being

30:43

made in their name. We

30:45

seed a lot of power to a

30:47

small group of radicals, whether

30:49

we're talking about New York, LA or

30:53

again even in Red States.

30:55

We see this power to a small group of radicals

30:58

and they end up making

31:00

changes to laws and policies

31:03

that impact all of us, and

31:06

by seating that power. We are choosing

31:09

to allow a small group

31:11

of radicals to put our lives

31:14

on the line, our quality of life on the line,

31:16

and we don't have to do that. We

31:18

can choose to take this power back and if

31:21

we do it, When we do it, we

31:23

will be much happier and this country

31:25

will thrive in ways it hasn't

31:27

before. If we don't do anything, if

31:30

we continue to sit back and allow the radicals to

31:32

take control, you know, the

31:34

next book might be Inside the Radical Left's tragic

31:36

destruction of our country, and I don't want

31:38

to get to that point.

31:39

Well, then that's certainly the direction that this

31:41

is all going, you know. I think we've all seen that under

31:44

Joe Biden. Sadly, Jason rant

31:46

the book is called What's Killing America? Inside

31:48

the Radical Left Tragic Destruction

31:50

of our Cities. Sounds like a great book.

31:53

I appreciate you joining the show and breaking

31:55

this all down for us and telling us a little bit about

31:57

your book.

31:58

Yeah. Absolutely, thank you so much for having me.

32:05

That was Jason Randt. Appreciate him

32:07

taking the time to join the show and talk

32:09

about his book and What's killing America,

32:12

particularly our cities. Want to thank you guys

32:14

at Home for listening every Monday and Thursday, but you

32:16

can listen throughout the week. And I also want to thank John

32:18

Cassio, my producer, for putting the show together.

32:20

Until next time,