Politics Girl: Keeping Democracy’s Head Above Water

Ken Harbaugh:

If you're a fan of Burn the Boats, hit the follow button to stay up to date with all our newest releases. Thanks, and enjoy the show.

Leigh McGowan:

It's not the whole Supreme Court, there are six of them that really are deeply corrupted. They're working on behalf of something other than the Constitution, other than the country of America.

They're working on behalf of the donors that put them there, and they're doing exactly what they were put there to do.

And our job now, as Democrats, as people who believe in America, as people who believe in democracy, is to say, “We see what's happening and we need it to be fixed.” And there are ways to fix it.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast where experts and change makers share their thoughts on the most pressing issues of the day.

My guest today is Leigh McGowan, but you probably know her as PoliticsGirl. Leigh's kitchen counter political breakdowns have helped millions of alienated Americans understand and engage with politics.

I've brought her on the show to talk about the upcoming election, the recent Supreme Court immunity ruling, and what's at stake for America.

Leigh, welcome to the show.

Leigh McGowan:

Well, thank you for having me, Ken. And you've already done my show, so I'm telling you thank you for coming doing that. Thank you for the films you make. I'm very grateful.

Ken Harbaugh:

Absolutely. We've got another one coming out. We'll talk about that soon, but people be on the lookout for Jesus and John Wayne. It is a thriller and a heartbreaker, but an important story.

But back to you, Leigh, because you gave an amazing pep talk to America back on July 4th. I'll put a link to it below. I found it especially moving though since you described the US as your air quotes “chosen country”.

For those who don't know your backstory and how you became PoliticsGirl, can you give us the summary?

Leigh McGowan:

Sure. The summary is I was born and bred in Toronto, Canada. I am a Canadian. I became an American in 2008. I actually moved to the States earlier than that and I was living in New York for school when 9/11 happened.

So, the view from my apartment was the Twin Towers, and I really feel like that was a seminal moment in my life. I was in my early 20s and I watched not only my city come together, this city that I loved (I love New York to this day) but the country come together.

And I thought this is a country I really want to be a part of. And it's not like I grew up somewhere where I wanted to escape from. I absolutely love Canada. It's a wonderful place to be from. It's a wonderful place to go back to. There are days where I think, “What the hell am I even doing here?”

But I fell in love with America during that crisis. And then I ended up moving to Los Angeles and I met my husband, and I married this American who was by far the best of all Americans.

He's a Navy brat. He lived all over the world. I always say I got the best of America in him. It's that he's got that total can do attitude without the why would I live anywhere else blinders. He's lived everywhere in the world, and I really feel like the combination of the two of us was great.

I started PoliticsGirl because everyone in my life just seemed to not care about politics. And I don't think that it was because they don't care about the world, or they don't care about the country.

I think it's mostly because what have we been told not to talk about our whole lives, politics and religion. And what are the two things that cause us the most problems in the history of the world, are politics and religion. So, we have these two major problems that we don't know how to talk about.

And after Obama lost the second midterms and I knew it was going to be a big crisis for getting things accomplished, and Mitch McConnell sort of basically took over, wouldn't have anything passed through the Senate. I was talking to people about it and no one cared.

They said, “It doesn't matter, Leigh, it's always the same. It doesn't matter. Everything's going to be fine. Both parties are the same.” And I thought, “No, that's entirely wrong, but I don't think people understand enough to really get that.”

And so, I started doing online civics on YouTube. Why we have an Iowa caucus, why the Supreme Court matters, all this kind of basic boring stuff that most people weren't learning. But as a Canadian, I had learned a lot of, because you can't live next door to the big powerful neighbor and not know a lot about it. We just don't have that luxury.

So, I think in a lot of ways, Canadians learn a lot of American history in a way that Americans are not privileged to anymore. And so, I started teaching that. Yeah.

Ken Harbaugh:

You have a sensitivity then about our American idiosyncrasies that very few political observers have. How would you assess what has gone so wrong since that 9/11 moment that we all shared?

Maybe the seeds of our dysfunction were already present. Maybe something happened between then and now that sowed them. But I felt that same feeling of kinship and patriotism on 9/11.

I mean, there was a dark undertone, of course, not just because of why it happened, but because of some of our reaction. But how have things gone so awry?

Leigh McGowan:

Well, I think you're right about the dark undertone. I always say that if 9/11 turned me into an American, the fallout from 9/11 made me into a Democrat because of the fallout.

I think the seeds were planted far earlier than that. I think that sometimes we were so busy living in a country with democracy that we stopped working on our democracy.

I think that the people that have been working to get us to where we are now, this is a 40, 50-year project. I think these are people that were not happy with the New Deal back in the ‘30s. They weren't happy when the most powerful people had to be curtailed by government organizations.

You couldn't just make however much you wanted and treat your workers however you wanted. You had to pay them a certain amount of money. You couldn't have children in your factories.

All these rules we put in in the ‘30s that we just take for granted now. The unemployment insurance, what led to Medicare, all these things that we take for granted in America, that all came in sort of post Gilded Age in the ‘30s.

And then you move forward, and we started pulling some of those back during the ‘80s. Then we had the overturning of Roe, and we had women's rights and civil rights.

And there were a lot of people that just were not happy with those progressions. They were not happy with that movement forward. They did not see it as foreign movement. They felt that it was taking something from them.

And that group of people had been working for 40 or 50 years to get us to where we are now, which is a place where we could literally be sitting back into a time machine and send us all the way back to the Gilded Age where a certain group of people make a ton of money and the rest of us fall in line.

And it's almost more like a more aristocracy now that you look at the Supreme Court decision. I mean, they basically said our president could be a king and he's going to have his little old guard around him and the rest of us can just fall in line.

And I think Americans have to take a step back and say, “It doesn't matter what my political persuasion has been, it doesn't matter what I've always voted. It doesn't matter if I think of myself as a Republican or a Democrat or whatever. What do I think America is?”

And I'm pretty sure most people would say, “I do not think America is the land where King has ultimate power and his immediate court get to do whatever they want and the rest of us are sharks on the land.”

I don't think that's what they would think, and I think that's what they need to vote against now.

Ken Harbaugh:

You've talked about this long-term generational plan (that's my word for it) for remaking American society in the image of Gilead, right from the Handmaid's Tale. You also just referenced the Supreme Court.

Can you talk about how those two intersect to make it real for this audience? This isn't some hypothetical conspiracy theory. The plan just vis-a-vis the Supreme Court to reshape it goes back decades.

And you just reposted on Twitter a picture of Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow and major donors that point to just how long term the right’s thinking is when it comes to this reshaping of American society.

Leigh McGowan:

Yeah. I think we need to be really serious that this is the deep state that we keep hearing about. It's just not the people that are accused of doing it.

And I think the key player in that photo that you're talking about isn't just the Supreme Court Justice or these billionaires that are funding them like Harlan Crow, but it's Leonard Leo.

Leonard Leo ran the Federalist Society. He has said since he was in college that he was a different version of America. He's hyper Christian. He's in a group called Opus Dei and he has had a vision for America that we are now, seeing play up.

The man has billions of dollars behind him. He ran the Federalist Society. All three of Donald Trump's Supreme Court choices were Leonard Leo's choices. Leonard Leo also takes credit for Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

And it is Leonard Leo's court that we're looking at. It is the Federalist Society's court. And Leonard Leo now, has another group where he wants to take what he did to the court and do it to American society. It's funded by a group in Chicago. They already have billions of dollars to do it.

These are organized brilliant people. This is not like, “Oh, well, how can Donald Trump get all this done?” This is nothing to do with Donald Trump. Donald Trump could be replaced tomorrow, and we would still have Project 2025, the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, the people that are doing all this.

She has a figurehead to a conservative America that they believe always should have been here, where women knew their place and minorities knew their place, and workers knew their place. And there is a hierarchy of power. It starts with white Christian men and it goes down from there.

And they have always believed that we were going in the wrong direction. And they think that this is their last great shot to get it done. And Leonard Leo really is a absolute genius. It's just a terrifying position he's put the country in.

Ken Harbaugh:

For those who are unfamiliar with the Federalist Society. A little personal reflection here and then I would love your thoughts.

I remember as a One L in law school, my first year in law school, they were already identifying law students that they thought 20 years down the road, 15 years down the road would make the kinds of federal judges that would issue the rulings we're now seeing.

I mean, that's how far ahead they are thinking. They are recruiting folks very young. They are identifying that ultra conservative talent, and they are putting, like you alluded to, billions of dollars behind this effort.

So, when democrats or when people who love democracy, let's broaden the tent, are raising the alarm about just how committed the anti-democratic forces are. I mean, we have experience with this. They have been planning this takeover for decades.

Leigh McGowan:

Absolutely. I mean, you only have to look at the election with Bush v. Gore and it all came down to the 25 electoral votes in Florida. Obviously, the state was also, run by George Bush's brother. He was the governor at the time.

But on the group of lawyers that were fighting to stop the counting of the votes was Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Like they were already Federalist Society people.

Then when we were going after Clinton for having his affair with Lewinsky, Kavanaugh was on the lead of that campaign. It is the same people that they are moving through the system because they will do exactly what they're told to do.

And then you look at people like Alito and Thomas and all of the connections they have to giant, big billionaires paying for their mother's rent, paying for their trips, paying for their vacations, paying for their wives. Like the corruption is so sickening.

But I don't want people to think that what Leonard Leo has been able to do with the court, which is quite frankly a hostile takeover of an entire branch of our government. If you can no longer pass laws, if you can't get people on board with your ideas or your candidates or the things that you want to do.

What they did was say, “Okay, no one likes our ideas. So, we're going to go over here and we're going to spend 40 years taking over the courts so that when laws are passed that we don't like the court shut them down.”

So, they took an entire branch of government over and we need to acknowledge that. Say, “Well done, well played. Good on you. You did what you were meant to do. Now, we're going to stop you. Now, that we can see what you're going to do.” Because there are ways to manage this court.

The legislative branch of our government is able to handle the court. We just have never talked about it before. We haven't talked about court reform because we all assumed the Supreme Court was this high and mighty sitting justices blind doing their job. And now, we can see it as not and we need to take action.

Ken Harbaugh:

You have been incredibly critical of the Supreme Court, but that's not an indictment of our legal system writ large.

And the reason I want to have this conversation is because we still have a jury system that by and large works, that reflects just outcomes. As in the case of the 34 indictments and convictions of the former president.

What we're talking about when we criticize the Supreme Court is the corruption of a handful of politically appointed justices. I mean, if a regular juror did half of what some of these justices are accused of doing, they'd probably be in jail. They certainly wouldn't be able to render verdicts on cases.

But we are making a clear distinction between the legal system writ large and the Supreme Court, which has become a hyper-partisan political organ.

Leigh McGowan:

Yeah. The Supreme Court is no longer working within our rule of law. I mean, they literally just took our constitution and set it on fire by saying the President is above the law.

And I think we need to really acknowledge that because one of the very first things this country was founded on was that we did not advocate. That was the whole point of becoming independent.

So, if you are an originalist or a textualist and you say, “I'm just here to say what the Constitution says.” The Constitution definitely does not say the president is above the law.

So, once they made that distinction, you can say, okay, these guys clearly are not working within the bounds of what they're supposed to be doing, which is basically reading the Constitution as it was meant to be.

Even Alexander Hamilton, like way back in the day when he was writing the Federalist Papers, he wrote Federalist Paper 78. He basically said, “The court does not sit above the other branches of government. The court is the people come first. And if the people don't like what's happening, the people always have the choice to move things around.”

And that's why we vote for the legislators. And the legislatures hold the judicial accountable.

And so, no, there's nothing wrong with our actual justice system. There is something wrong with the justices, particularly six Supreme Court justices that were put there with a specific goal in mind, and they're following through with that goal.

Ken Harbaugh:

You wrote this or you included this in one of your recent monologues, and I think it's spot on. You said, “The Supreme Court of the United States is corrupt and we do ourselves a disservice to citizens to think otherwise.”

The only solution to a corrupt court is a powerful legislature to hold them accountable, to pass reforms, to expand the court, if necessary, to impeach the justices, if need be. I mean, that's the point we're at.

For the first time in my political memory, the court has become a top issue for Democrats. We always ignore it. We always assume that it's going to be above the fray and that its members, the Supreme Court members are going to operate in good faith.

Do you think that has changed? Do you think enough Democrats will finally care about the Supreme Court in this election year?

Leigh McGowan:

Yeah, I think they can't not care. Joe Biden has already come out and said like, “I've been given the power of a king. I'm not going to use it.”

I think the thing that we have to keep in mind is that these people are corrupt. They came on, they did their … there's a reason we give these people lifetime appointments. There's a reason they can't be fired from their job. They set the precedent for our entire law that goes down through all the other court systems.

What the Supreme Court says is the precedent set for the rest of the nation, it is the last and final word of the law. So, if those people, there's a reason they have to sit through Senate confirmation hearings and be approved by the justices. And it's because that is such an important job.

And if people in those seats … and there's only six of them, really, we have to say it's not the whole Supreme Court. There are six of them. And I would've normally held John Roberts in sort of a center position. He went back and forth, but now, the mask is off. We know who he is.

There are six of them that really are deeply corrupted. They're working on behalf of something other than the Constitution, other than the country of America. They're working on behalf of the donors that put them there, and they're doing exactly what they were put there to do.

And our job now, as Democrats, as people who believe in America, as people who believe in democracy, is to say, “We see what's happening and we need it to be fixed.” And there are ways to fix it.

The Supreme Court is the only court in all of America that doesn't have ethics rules. That makes no sense. That seems like the most obvious thing.

Oh, if you took a bribe from someone who's now sitting in front of you, you have to recuse yourself. Right now, the justices are allowed to self recuse. They can decide if they want to hear a case or not. They can decide if they want to recuse.

Anyone else, if they took a basket of cookies from someone that was going to sit in front of them, they could not rule on that case, the Supreme Court justices can. Seems like the easy thing for the legislators to put through.

And you can expand the court. We can make each one of those justices less powerful. If we're only bringing cases like the Dobbs case that overturned Roe to the court, not because the case has changed, not because pregnancy has changed, not because the rules have changed, but because the court itself, the makeup of the court has changed, and you know you have the votes to win.

That's not blind justice that is saying, “I know it's stacked in my favor. I'm now, going to bring this case.”

And Clarence Thomas said right after the job decision, he was like, “Bring me Brown v. Board of Education. Bring me gay marriage, bring me all these things. I'll overturn all of them. Just write me the case and I'll overturn all of them.”

They're telling us what they're going to do. We're going to reverse the rules, which goes back to the people that wanted it reversed. The Leonard Leos of the world.

This is what they want. They don't like workers' rights, they don't like civil rights, they don't like women's rights, and they're setting up this court to reverse all of it.

So, we as Americans and voters and people in power have to say, “Listen, we're not going to allow you to do this, and here are the steps we're going to take.”

A couple of those guys deserve to be impeached. We've had 23 impeachments in the history of our country and only eight removals. You have to be impeached and then you have to have a trial. And it would be if you are removed.

We've only had eight removals in our entire country's history, and they've all been federal judges. So, we need to like literally look at Alito and Thomas pretty quickly and they could be impeached.

These are all possibilities that need to be taken. And I think we need to really look at the court and expanding the court in general. A, to match the number of appellate districts. People think, “Well, we have nine justices, and it always has to be like that.”

No, it doesn't. We only have nine justices on the Supreme Court because 150 years ago, we matched it to the number of appellate courts. There are now, 13 appellate courts. So, theoretically, we should have 13 Supreme Court justices.

And I used to say, “Okay, let's add those four seats, but we'll give the Republicans two and we'll give ourselves two.” Now, I'm like, “Nope, we can just take four. The liberals can take four. The Democrats can take four seats.”

Let's start not stacking the court because the court is already stacked. We must balance the court to make justice once again blind, to rule on behalf of the people, which is what they're supposed to do, rule on behalf of the Constitution.

They're just supposed to dictate what the Constitution says. Not what they believe, not what their religion says, not what their donors say.

And they haven't been doing that for a long time. So, we need to balance that out. And that is all possible with the right legislation.

Ken Harbaugh:

We had Jim Obergefell on a couple years ago and he said, “Mark my words-

Leigh McGowan:

“They’re coming for it.”

Ken Harbaugh:

“They're coming for it.” And a lot of people at the time were like, “That's a bridge too far.” But look what's happened.

Leigh McGowan:

Look at women in America. Look, I can't even believe we're here. We are literally going to be slaves of the state if we don't do something. And every time someone says to me, “Oh, so exhausted, like we're just going to lose, it's too much.”

And I'm like, “You know what? Women do not have time for your exhaustion. We don't have the luxury of your cowardice. We are losing our rights daily in this country. There are women bleeding out being airlifted from one state to another because people don't know what to do with this dying woman in front of them.” That is obscene in the year 2024.

Ken Harbaugh:

How does Project 2025 relate to all this? Because it again, is the culmination of a decades long plan, a years of ambition coming to a head within the Heritage Foundation. The head of the Heritage Foundation has described it as a plan to institutionalize Trumpism.

And now, you have not just a sympathetic court, but a co-conspirator in the Supreme Court that might actually make these ambitions possible.

How do you assess the relationship between this political effort being led by the Heritage Foundation and the judicial, the legal path being cleared by the Supreme Court?

Leigh McGowan:

I would say I assess it as being terrifying. I think people should be terrified. I think it is very realistic. Again, this is not something someone just came up with. This is a long-term plan.

The first time Trump was president, he had no idea how to do the job. He didn't hire the right people, he was all over the place. They always make the joke they didn't know what the light switches were.

This time, they are entirely prepared. And it's not because Trump is prepared, it's because people like the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, everyone else that signed on to Project 2025 from Turning Point USA, to Moms for Liberty, they're all on board with this plan.

So, like every conservative group we've ever heard of, every major conservative player is on board for Project 2025. And it is organized by smart people who have read our system and read our laws and know how to find the loopholes.

And it all starts with something called Schedule F. And Schedule F is something that Trump put in when he was in office. And then when Biden became president, he reversed because it was an executive order. They will immediately put it back in.

And Schedule F basically allows them to fire people at will. Whereas you couldn't use to fire people. It's a law that they made again, back during FDRs time where you can't just fire people for political reasons. You can't just say, “You don't believe what I believe.”

Which is how we got career civil servants. They call them the deep state, but they're really people that just stay from administration to administration and do their job in every form of government. Our government is gigantic, and they just stay.

Now, they're going to do loyalty tests and they're going to say, if you are not a hundred percent for Trumpism, you're gone, you're gone, you're gone.

And they started with 50,000 federal workers and head of the Heritage Foundation has said, “No, it's going to be way more than that.” They are going to surround the entire government with loyalists.

First of all, I don't know how you run government agencies with a bunch of people that don't know how to do it but are loyal to Donald Trump. That seems bananas. So, good luck getting your checks on time if you get a check at all from the government anymore.

But on top of that, it's you're creating an authoritarian government. You're saying here's the person in charge, everyone else is deeply loyal or they're gone.

And he is talking about locking people up. He's talking about locking Liz Cheney up, having military tribunals for her. For what? Speaking out against him. That is terrifying.

And as you're saying, we now, have a court in place that would say perfectly within the official duties of the president to have military tribunals for someone who spoke out against him.

And as Americans coming up on an election, you have to say, “That's a bridge too far, I cannot do that. And I don't care how I feel about Joe Biden. I can't have that as my America or the America of my children.”

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. And it's not just, I mean 50,000 federal workers being tossed out for Trump loyalists is bad enough, but they're talking about the heads of agencies. They're talking about the military gutting the leadership ranks of the military to make sure it's populated with Trump loyalists, even if removing a one-star general into a four-star billet.

Because Trump doesn't want to have happen what happened the last time he tried to, for example, send the 82nd airborne into DC. He wants people who will say yes to him no matter what. And they are willing to provoke violence to do it.

I want to show you this video of the head of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, talking about this second American revolution.

Kevin Roberts:

That we are in the process of the second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.

Ken Harbaugh:

Leigh, that is chilling stuff coming from the head of what used to be one of the most respected conservative foundations think tanks in the country. He is basically saying nice democracy you have there if you can keep it.

Leigh McGowan:

Yeah. Well, he's also speaking in what women would recognize as rapist talk. He's saying, “Look what you made me do. You'll only get hurt if you don't lie there and take it.” Like he's saying it will be the left's fault if it's violent. He's absolutely saying, “I'm going to be violent provided you don't roll over.”

And the thing about this man (and he's been all over the media lately) is the casual chilling, coldness in which he says the things that he says. “Yes, we will be getting rid of way more of those people. Yes, there is a way to be.”

And we have to remember that Project 2025 is completely anti-environment, completely anti-gay, completely anti any other religion except Christianity. It is talking about purging people that aren't loyalists and staying true to the cause. And it really reads like modern day Mein Kampf.

And we can't pretend that that's not what it is. The way this man speaks about it is, I think chilling is exactly the right word that you used because they're not kidding. They're telling us exactly what they're going to do. And we can't say, “Well, it won't be that bad.” It will be that bad. It'll be that bad and worse.

And we won't have the Mark Mills and the Espers anymore to get in the way of someone like Trump saying, “Well, can't we just shoot them all? Like why can't we just shoot them to get out of my way?”

And they're like, “Those are peaceful protestors. Like first of all, those are your citizens and you're their president. Secondly, we don't shoot peaceful protestors. And thirdly like, bro, what are you talking about?” Like he doesn't want anyone like that anymore. They want them to be like, “Yes, sir. Absolutely sir.”

Because I'm telling you, we protest. We will protest. That happened, we would protest. And all they have to do to speak to your Handmaid's Tale illusion earlier is shoot a bunch of us once. Take out 500 of us at a protest.

I can promise you there won't be a lot of protests after that because we'll be afraid and then will be a country that lives in fear of our leader, and we won't be able to replace our leader anymore.

Which is how they live in Russia. You have elections, but we know who's going to win. It's how they're functioning in Hungry.

It's how they're functioning, get rid of the media that says anything bad about you. Get rid of anyone who speaks out against you. People fall out of windows. You take your political rival, put him in a gulag and all of a sudden, he is dead. “Oh, what happened to him?”

This is how close we are to what we're talking about. And you don't have to look in history to see it. It's happening today all around the world. And Trump made an illusion the other day that he was going to make North Korea, China, and Russia great again.

And I thought, “Oh, come on.” Like how more obvious can we be? It doesn't matter what your political persuasion is at this point. You have to say, “Am I am American? And what does that stand for?” And it cannot be this.

Ken Harbaugh:

How does Christian nationalism relate to this? Because that has been such an animating force behind the surge in confidence of the political right. But it is so contradictory with the actual values preached by the historical Jesus, the values of tolerance and welcoming the stranger and all of those things.

And on one hand you have now, the requirement that the 10 commandments be taught in schools in like Louisiana and Oklahoma. On the other hand, total intolerance from anyone who espouses a different worldview.

Leigh McGowan:

Well, first of all, you have a leader that basically breaks every single commandment that you just put on that wall. So, I mean, I think the thing we have to keep in mind is that Christian nationalism is not Christianity.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thank you.

Leigh McGowan:

And Christian nationalism is a power structure and Christianity is a faith structure. And people who follow the Christian faith know that you do unto others. They know that you treat the neighbor well, they give to the poor and the hungry, and you embrace the stranger. That's Christianity. If you follow Christ, that's Christianity.

Christian nationalism is a power structure in which you're using people's faith, people's belief in something. This sort of blind faith to a text blind faith to a deity that you can't see. And you're twisting it to make it a blind faith to a leader, a blind faith to a movement. You're using the same belief structure to push it into a power structure.

And so, there's very few movements in the world, very few authoritarian movements in the world that didn't have some tie to a religion because these people that are hardcore believers are much more susceptible to a strong man leader because they already believe in a leader they can't see who is all knowing, all seeing, everything is right.

It's interesting to see a country that based its history on the separation of church and state, now trying to create an absolute enmeshed church and state. Because I think like if you think, “Well, I am a Christian, so I'll do fine in a Christian nationalist America.”

And I would say, “No, you will not because which Christianity are you, which version of Christianity are you?” Because not all versions of Christianity have a place in this New World Order that they're talking about. And it certainly isn't the do unto others help your neighbor version.

So, I think we just need to see it as a power structure and the using of people's faith as a way to get them to fall in line. They are the most easy to make into soldiers.

Ken Harbaugh:

Yeah. Well, I would argue that if you are an actual Christian in the tradition of the historical Jesus, there's no room for you at all if you believe in the beatitudes, if you believe in blessed are the oppressed and the stranger and those real values of Christianity, that is not reflected in Christian nationalism at all.

Do you often hear from people you've persuaded? We're on the same network a lot of the time, MeidasTouch network.

I sometimes worry about being in our own bubble and I try really hard to find ways out of it. I do a weekly appearance on a super conservative syndicated AM radio talk show, things like that to get out.

How do you know whether or not you're reaching outside our own information bubble?

Leigh McGowan:

Yeah, okay. I think you're entirely right about that. I do think that people like to be in their bubble. It makes them feel safe whether you're in a right-wing bubble or a left-wing bubble.

I think it's great you're doing that radio show. I'll have to watch that for sure. I’ll listen to that. That sounds amazing. I do think that a lot of this real hate right wing conservatism actually grew in the radio space for people like Rush. So, I think that that's terrific that you're doing it.

I think that ultimately, I do my rants in my kitchen as a way to reach the divide because that's not through a liberal network. I think a lot of people are always surprised I live in Los Angeles because my kitchen is so not Los Angeles-y.

I'm always like, “Oh, I guess I'm not fancy enough to live in Los Angeles.” Makes me laugh.

But I live a real life and I'm a real person. And I think that it helps people to see that I'm just an American.

That at the end of the day, this is a we the people nation. And I am of the people, I chose this country. I started this show by saying it's my chosen country. I believe in this nation. I have faith in this nation. I have faith in the people of this nation.

One of the reasons I talk from my kitchen is because I'm like I'm just one of you and here are my thoughts that I'm having.

Also, it's going to sound like a shameless plug, but I have a book coming out in September and it's called A Return to Common Sense. And it's about returning to our values as a country, returning to who we are.

And I believe that there are six things, which is what I lay out in the book, that it doesn't matter where in the political spectrum you sit, you would agree makes America, America.

And if we back it all up and we start from those six foundational principles, which is like America's a land of freedom, every citizen should have a vote and their vote should count, the law should apply to all of us. Like these basic tenements.

If we took those six foundations, not only could we build a better, stronger nation on top of it that wasn't politically divided, we could say, “Yeah, no, we agree with these things.

And if we look at it through a lens, if we look at America through a lens, if we look at our legislation and our politicians and the things that we're doing through the lens of does it fit into these six things that we can all agree on?

And if it doesn't, then we're not going the right direction. It's not an American decision as opposed to a conservative decision, a liberal decision, a Republican decision, democratic decision. Is it an American decision? Does it fit with American fundamentals?

That's what I wanted to build on because I do think that we need somewhere to get back to a place, guideposts to get out of this mischievous mess we're in right now. And I think that this is the way we're doing it.

So, I wrote the book specifically from a commonsense place. Of course, it's going to have liberal values in it. That's where I sit. But I wouldn't say I'm a Democrat. I would say the democratic values more aligned with who I am as a person, but I think they more aligned with who America is as a nation.

Right now, whatever the Republican party has become, this white Christian nationalist, take it all back, put us in a time machine, treat workers terribly, poison the environment. What's war more for me? Give me, give me, give me.

I don't think that's America at all. And I think most people, if they really sat down and thought about it with common sense, would agree with that.

And so, there's only one party right now, to keep democracy’s head above water. But you don't have to be a Democrat to vote for that party. You say, “I want to keep democracy’s head above water and that party's going to drown us.” So, move forward.

We're a baby nation. I say this all the time, we're 250 years old. In the history of the world, we're like teenagers. We're acting out, we're acting like jerks.

It's that America is so powerful, we're such a powerful nation that we don't have the luxury of screwing it up for 250 years and then being like, “Whoops, guess we shouldn't have gone authoritarianism.”

We don't have the luxury of that. The planet doesn't have the luxury of that. The world doesn't have luxury of that.

We have become what we said at the big banks, too big to fail. So, America has to get it together for this election and then start building something better. And I really believe we can do that. And that's not a left or right position. That's an American position.

Ken Harbaugh:

For sure. I'm glad you brought up the book because I wanted to ask you about it and I want to make sure people can pre-order it. We'll put a link in the notes.

Your subtitle is How to Fix America Before We Really Blow It. And I, of course, haven't read it yet because the galley copies aren't out. But I went through the six principles and I just got so depressed reading number five, the law applies to all of us, because I read it in researching this interview right after the Supreme Court decision came out.

I don't know that there's a question in this, but I mean, it's going to fall to us if we can't count on the court to uphold that basic principle of democracy no one is above the law, then it's got to be the legislature and we pick that.

Leigh McGowan:

We pick that. Here's the thing, it is a scary time to live through. It is a terrifying moment in American history where we are right now. But we also, sit at this point of great power if we choose to take it.

If we voted at a hundred percent in this country, I would be like, “Geez, we're in a lot of trouble.” But we don't. One third of the country doesn't even vote. People vote like the way they've always voted because they're not paying attention.

There are places that vote at 34%. There are places that vote at 46%. You get 10% more out in all of those elections, we could change states, we could change the course of the nation. There are 6 to 9 million people abroad, Americans abroad, just Democrats abroad every year that could vote in elections and change all of our elections.

We have so much power to fix this, so much power to put better people in the legislature to represent us. You go, how is it that we all think that we should have better gun laws and yet we never get them?

Well, there's a reason for that. It's filled the filibuster, and we need to put better people in that will reverse the filibuster and allow us to have higher minimum wage, better healthcare, better gun laws. These kind of things that will keep us safe, and healthy, and flourishing in America. All possible. All possible if we realize all the power that we have.

And what these people at the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society and the courts of America don't want us to know is how incredibly powerful we are. They want us depressed.

Now, they want us replacing our president in the last minute as if an incumbent doesn't have an 80% chance of winning. They know that, that's why they're trying to convince us to change our candidate.

I mean, honest to God, we are so close to actually making true, honest to God change in this country. Good positive change. And the people that don't want it are terrified. So, they are in their Hail Mary phase. They are in the bloodless revolution if the left allows it phase. Give me a break.

No, we can absolutely fix this so we can fix this voting, we can fix this with picking better legislatures. Absolutely no Marjorie Taylor Greens, a million Jon Ossoffs.

There are so many wonderful politicians that we forget because we paint them with such a broad brush of they're all terrible. They're not all terrible.

And in fact, it's on us putting a single terrible person in there. There's only 535 people in the entire country that can make federal laws. Why are we putting a single Lauren Boebert in when we could put 10 Jamie Raskins? It's on us.

But that's also super exciting because it's on us. We get to make the choice, we the people.

Ken Harbaugh:

I'm glad you mentioned Lauren Boebert because I think-

Leigh McGowan:

Are you?

Ken Harbaugh:

I am because it is so illustrative of the trajectory of today's Republican Party. You saw this recent round of primaries and which direction did the Democratic party go in?

It picked moderates, it picked people who were serious about governing. Who did the Republican party pick? They went back to Lauren Boebert.

Leigh McGowan:

Yeah, they picked Yahoos because we become a social media culture. We become a who can get the most airtime culture. And the Democrats are still trying to do the job of guarding. They're still trying to actually do the work.

And we have to remember that these jobs these people have, it is work. These are the only people that have the power of the purse string for who pays for America.

These are people paying your federal workers. These are the people paying your aviation, and making sure planes don't fall out of the air. And the food you eat isn't poisoned, and the drugs that you take off the shelves aren't going to kill you.

These are all government agencies. These are important jobs. These people are doing important work and we don't have the luxury of putting yahoos who can get a lot of airtime in those positions.

It's a real job. You wouldn't just pick the best social media person to do your brain surgery and you shouldn't just pick the best social media person to do your governing because honestly these are essential work that they're doing.

And so, yeah, no more Lauren Boebert. It's obscene. And there's always going to be some cuckoo bananas person in there because it's made up of humans and some of us humans, we've lost our nuts.

And in some ways you go, “Okay, well, that's direct representation. Some people are nuts, and they should have a nuts person to represent them. And that is democracy.”

But we need more people fighting against them. We need more people who are smart and prepared for the job and ready to do it and take it seriously.

And we actually do have a lot of them. It's just that right now, they're either lost because they're cowards in the Republican Party and they can't stand up to the worst amongst them or they are brilliant, and we don't see them because they don't get a lot of air time when the Lauren Boeberts of the world are on our screens.

Ken Harbaugh:

This question is not a pivot away from President Biden because he's got the delegates, he's our nominee unless he decides to release the delegates.

But you did a show recently about Kamala Harris and her incredible record of accomplishments and this quote actually stuck with me. I'm going to read it to you and then I want you to summarize your bit on Vice President Harris.

You said, “There's a point where we have to ask ourselves how competent and qualified does a woman, especially a woman of color have to be to be taken seriously?”

And that is such a perfect description of what has happened to Vice President Harris with this I think very coordinated onslaught of attacks against her.

Leigh McGowan:

Well, listen, our country sadly, is still quite misogynistic. So, it doesn't matter if you are a white woman like Hillary Clinton or you are a person of color like Vice President Harris.

We are a misogynistic nation. We are dependent on women in almost every aspect of our lives. And yet we want to control them, and they want to treat them like they can't possibly lead.

Vice president in Harris is about the most accomplished vice president we have ever had. And most people have no idea what she's done in her life.

They have no idea how accomplished she was as Attorney General. They have no idea how accomplished she was as a senator. They have no idea how accomplished she was being reelected in multiple jobs throughout her life. She is a powerhouse in the Biden administration and most of the time we never see her.

And in some ways, that's the vice president. That role itself is essentially a very weird role. It is a consummate second banana role. You can't take power or you can't shine. You have to shine your light on the President. The light cannot shine on you, but you have to be confident enough that when the president's time is over, the party will turn to you to lead. It is a weird role.

John Adams was the very first vice president and he was Washington's vice president. And he wrote to his wife to basically say, “Well, my country in its more wisdom has given me like the worst role that anyone could ever have in their entire life.” Because it is a terrible job.

I see in the same thing about Kamala Harris. If you can tell me some great accomplishments from vice presidents of the past, I would pay you money. Because like the host, people would be like — I said, “Well, they did …” Like most people have no idea what the vice president did.

And yet the fact that Kamala Harris hasn’t solved world hunger and changed attire at the same time is impossible for people to function. She's an idiot. She's muzzled. She's this, she’s that.

She's a brilliant woman. She's young, she's brilliant to get concerned about Joe Biden's health. She's right there in the wakes.

Quite frankly, if Joe Biden could make it to January 21st, 2025, and he said, “Thank you very much. I'm so glad you chose the Democratic Party. I'm so glad we're in this structure.” If he said, “Now, I'm going back to Delaware with my wife and my grandchildren,” we would be in absolutely stellar position with Kamala Harris as our president.

Whatever ends up happening, we have an absolute powerhouse in the wings and everyone should be thrilled about that. We have the numbers to win right now. Right now, with Joe Biden, we have the numbers to win.

We have the incumbent advantage. We have a huge war chest. No one should be questioning if the Democrats are going to win. And no one should be worried about Joe Biden's age because Kamala Harris is right there.

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, not just with Kamala Harris, but with the Democratic bench, we have an incredible future. And I was ... who was I talking? Well, one of our recent guests. We were doing the apples-to-apples comparison of the Republican bench and who they are setting up for leadership versus the Democratic bench.

And I am bullish on America's future if the Democrats can gain power because we have some really impressive people. We just need to message to the American people in a way that is convincing and compelling.

Leigh McGowan:

Oh, Ken, you and me both. I mean, literally if people want the next JFK, they just need to keep democracy’s head above water in 2024 because that bench coming into 2028 is if we end up with a primary that year, you've got Pete Buttigieg, you've got Gretchen Whitmer, you have Gavin Newsom, you have Shapiro.

There's so many excellent Democrats just ready to lead. Young, powerful, progressive, excellent Democrats.

You want a future that you feel proud of where America's leading again, and we're doing green New Deal stuff, and we're making money at the same time, and we're leading the world, and NATO's flourishing, and Russia is defeated, and its authoritarianism. It's all coming.

You just need to take the Joe Biden bridge from here to there. That's what you need to do. We need to keep, again, democracy's head above water and then boy, can we go far?

Ken Harbaugh:

Well, let's end on that note because lately we haven't often ended on high notes, and I love that landing.

I guess last question for you. I love that you do your shows in the kitchen. How much thought goes into the backdrop? Because I love the fridge art. Is that just accidental? Is that what the kids brought home that day or is that intentional?

Leigh McGowan:

Listen, I'm nothing if not genuine. That is my real kitchen. If it was a set, there would not be a pull up bar in the background. Like that is the ugliest thing I've ever seen in my life. It lives there because my boys like it. You know what I mean? The things that are on my fridge are who I am.

Like before I ever started this show, there was a list on my fridge that said things money can't find. Like that is who we are as people. And there are people that come in and I always get the men that are like, “Shut up, make me a sandwich.” Those guys are fine.

But the people that say like, “You can't possibly live there, that has to be fake. You've tried to make yourself the common man.”

I’m like nope, this is literally my real life. This is who I really am because at the end of the day, we are all just trying to get by, trying to live our life and do it. And I just put the camera on the window when I started this and started speaking directly to my fellow Americans.

And so, I think it’s the authenticity of it that appeals to people, and I think people really again, want more hope. And I believe in this nation’s heritage, and I think we can live up to it for sure.

Ken Harbaugh:

I do too. There’s this phrase from my religious upbringing, there's no zealot like the convert. And I love talking to Americans who have chosen this country like you have because it helps restore my faith every time.

Thank you so much, Leigh. Let's do this again soon.

Leigh McGowan:

I always love that, Ken. Thank you. And let's do it soon.

Ken Harbaugh:

Thanks for listening to Burn the Boats. If you have any feedback, please email the team at [email protected]. We're always looking to improve the show.

For updates and more, follow us on Twitter @Team_Harbaugh. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to rate and review.

Burn the Boats is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Our producer is Declan Rohrs, and Sean Rule-Hoffman is our audio engineer. Special thanks to Evergreen executive producers, Joan Andrews, Michael DeAloia, and David Moss.

I'm Ken Harbaugh, and this is Burn the Boats, a podcast about big decisions.

Hide Transcript