 Aloha, welcome to Talk Story with John Waihei and those of you who have watched us from time to time know that every once in a while I'd like to take advantage of a few friends and just have a conversation, a kind of freewheeling conversation about the state of affairs in our nation and in our state and you know I so I I have these people on call and for this afternoon we are going to be talking to Jay Fidel now Jay is the one of the founders so it's not the main founder of Tink Tech Hawaii and so he has been doing a lot of shows that deal with the issues of the day and he is especially fond about talking about the president he's very fond of doing that now I didn't say was very fond of the president but he's very fond of doing that so I thought it would be fun to have Jay with us today and the title of our show is Apocalyptic America and the reason for that is because we are becoming so concerned about what's happening in our country that doesn't even resemble the types of things that we were taught in elementary school about the advantages of the American democracy and the question for all of us is where is all of this going to end up what happens by the end of the 21st century with our country with our state and you know ultimately without planets so why don't you help me greet my guest this afternoon Jay Fidel from Tink Tech Hawaii and he is sitting at his for his own computer so Jay welcome welcome you know every once in a while I'd like to do these fun shows with you and here we are doing them with you John and thanks for having me on there's so much to discuss and we should be candid about about apocalyptic America with a K yeah okay not everybody is but we should be well you know here we are look look it's what's happening we got a a political party and a president not the entire not necessarily all in step but the moving us this whole country so far to the right and it's being opposed by a group of by the Democratic Party who doesn't even who has made the idea of Democratic Socialism fashionable got candidates openly saying I'm a Democrats openly saying this so you know where's all this polarization leading to Jay you got any idea what what might be in store for us I think we have a huge divide in the country polarized in so many ways it's not only wealth disparity it's all kinds of social issues and and it precedes Trump he takes advantage of it he understands it he makes the breach wider but you know the country has been sort of going polar polar polarized oh gosh for 30 40 years I think it started at the end of Vietnam or even during the Vietnam War but now it's really accentuated isn't it and marvelous job and accentuating it only in the past three years well you know I just had a conversation what two days ago with a friend of mine who is a conservative Republican and but not necessarily a Trump supporter but a conservative Republican and what he kept emphasizing to me was that in his mind Obama was as bad as Trump because of all this in the word that he used because of all the socialist things that he did and I really couldn't I didn't know offhand what though I don't know offhand what Obama did there was so socialistic so I asked him that I said but what are you talking about well national health care socialistic platform that builds on the insurance company what do you know do you think well first of all do you think that Trump was preceded by eight years of rampant socialism I can't you know every good dictator likes to have a scapegoat matter of fact I think it's essential to emerge to rise up as a dictator you have to find scapegoats I mean it was clear what Hitler did he found a number of scapegoats including but not limited to the Jews the Catholics the Gypsies the homosexuals socialist he played he played on scapegoating and that's exactly what Trump does the division helps him he plays on you know pitting one side against another but you know the fact is it's fertile ground in this country as never before and and I think you have to ask yourself why why is it fertile ground now I guess an easy answer would be you know you were talking about things you learn in elementary school about you know a representative government and maybe a lot of people didn't learn it that well I think I think a good part of this country didn't learn it that well or if they did learn it they didn't like it and they didn't and they forgot it immediately and they've been you know torn away from it now and they don't understand about three branches of government they don't understand the miracle of the Constitution they don't understand what the founders had in mind they don't understand the social compact you can't have a country without a general understanding of you know fundamental rights and fundamental privileges and fundamental fundamental respect for humanity for the next guy caring about the polity and the community and I think we lost that somewhere it's interesting that we just had a as you know and we can't the elephant in this conversation is we just had an impeachment process I don't know if you should actually call it a trial but it was an impeachment process which our founding fathers American founding fathers establishes a way to bring balance and or at least avoid the excesses of power and it was absolutely interesting that the entire process turned out to be a study of power those that had the vote got an absolute result that they that they look for and those that didn't just got left behind I mean could you see for example what happened to the the leaders like Everett Dirksen and other great American statesmen of the Republican Party I mean where are those people that'll stand up for right no matter what we had one in the case of Romney I believe but that's you know but you know you know years ago when when you and I came up we thought that Washington and the Capitol especially the Capitol were filled with very important people who deserve to be there who understood the mechanics of government who understood what it was to represent the people and constituents and all that and to to make good policy decisions and and make make the government responsible to implement them you know it was I had a lot of respect for the people in Congress tonight when I grew up and when I went to law school and looked at it from afar but I don't have respect for them anymore I do respect the Democrats I want to say Adam Schiff is my hero you know as a as a lawyer you know if you listen to the arguments he made they were brilliant and they were well articulated it was a masterful work of bringing out the evidence and explaining the evidence and persuading on the evidence but I must say the Republicans don't fit in the category the Republicans are not people you can admire as a group what they did in this impeachment what they have done in so many ways like confirming judges who were not qualified by sitting on bills that the country needed you know by by refusing to consider any initiative by the Democrats I mean that's that's not what it's about those guys don't understand how Congress should work well really you know what happened right after the trial what's happening right now is a whole a lot of retaliation is going on people are getting fired they're getting replaced by there's a kind of a movement toward the purity of the administration branch and and Congress is going along with this where is this balance of power well I I think that the Constitution forgive me but I I think the Constitution is under profound attack it may never recover you have you have the Senate is completely dysfunctional thus making the Congress dysfunctional you have the president enhancing his power violating the law in plain sight you know he could shoot somebody in Fifth Avenue nothing would happen to him and he's he's done a lot of crime and nothing has happened to him nothing will happen to him and this this acquittal in the impeachment process as you say is a lesson to into this government this country and all who follow oh this guy this guy we're really busted here John well I tell you what this guy's charges and the evidence against him made Richard Nixon look like a school school kid compared to what he's been charged with I mean using a foreign power to influence an election and then not there is no repercussion repercussion for it because well he didn't really mean to do that you know and all and worse I I just well there's no Congress he is body blocked Stonewall Congress at every turn not only on this but on so many other things think back to the Mueller investigation he did the same thing on that and and completely suborning the the Attorney General he owns the Attorney General the country so if somebody does create a crime somebody does do a crime including him the Attorney General is never going to prosecute unless Trump says so so you know what you have is a complete breakdown and we've had it for a while but now it's it's much worse and how can you rely on this government to do what it's supposed to do you know to me the question is where where we go from here how can we actually survive as a democracy I was just gonna ask you that question because you know we're talking about the stuff that makes the headlines recently made their headlines recently but this is an administration that's undercut environmental protection is simultaneously as as we're going through the impeachment trial we're putting judges in positions that they weren't qualified for putting people in positions that they weren't qualified for I mean it's over and over and over again and they seem everything seems to smack of money it's all about the dollars you know you play you pay to play pay to play is just it's accepted it's accepted you know what do you do and it will be accepted going forward all the more so if let me ask you a question job you know given the obstruction clearly we have had that given you know the whole affair in Ukraine and and given the nature of it and and Donald Trump's you know his responses his various responses to various criminal charges against him is does it stop there I mean to me it's worse that he obstructed and then he played with the 491 million and used as a lever I tell you what really offensive but I believe I'm asking you if you believe whether that's the limit well I'm going to help you out we are going to dwell in that answer in a few in a minute when we get back from this short break hello how I'm Lillian Cumick host of Lillian's vegan world the show where we talk about veganism and the plant-based diet located in Honolulu Hawaii I'm a vegan chef and cooking instructor and I have lots of information to share with you about how awesome this plant-based diet is so do tune in every second Thursday from 1 p.m. Aloha Aloha I'm Kili Akina the host of Hawaii together on the ThinkTech Hawaii broadcast network Hawaii together deals with the problems we face in paradise and looks for solutions whether it's with the economy the government or society we're streamed live on ThinkTech biweekly at 2 p.m. on Mondays I want to thank you so much for watching we look forward to seeing you again I'm Kili Akina Aloha welcome back to talk story with John why we just ended our short break and we have as our guest this afternoon Jafidel and J was just leading into a most interesting discussion he actually posed the question for the host and he as a host himself we sort of take turns doing this and he's asking me Jake hit it what are you asking me okay then what's happened given what we've seen of Donald Trump and this this particular administration and what he's done and how he's covered up the things he wants to cover up and they kept things secret in the way he's undermined the press for example and undermine the truth alternative facts would have you is do we know the extent of this we we don't know what Bolton would say them there could be all kinds of stuff there and my intuition I'm asking about yours is that there are other criminal activities that this president has undertaken which we don't know about and we may never know about but I feel in my heart I'm asking you what you feel in your heart that there's a lot I agree with you I think there's much more I think we've only seen that as they say the tip of the iceberg and if people dig deeper now one of the interesting phenomenons that are happening is that you know he is his his strength on the Republican in the for though among those individual citizens who called who identified himself as Republican has remained pretty strong it's it's lessened it's it's taken a few hits and among the Democrats obviously there's you know almost united against him but among the people who considered themselves independent so free thinkers there's been a kind of a major shift and I think that when Donald doesn't have the same usefulness that he currently has you know what's interesting about this president is that he may be as worse he may be actually worse than we might believe in and as you as you suggest but he's also useful to a whole bunch of other people's agendas they are those for example Mitch McConnell I can see Mitch sitting down with the president and basically saying you know you bring me the right kind of judges and I'll make sure that you stick around to keep a point in them I can see the big oil or big money people in this country saying you know you let us do what we want and make a fortune and we'll we'll keep backing you up now at some point in time some point in time the power is going to shift and the question for that I that I my answer is couched when that happens when that happens I believe that people are going to make him pay the piper but what do you do I have I have some very close relatives people I admire who tell me that they will never never not support Trump our current president because of their belief their religious belief about the sanctity of life and as long as he says that he is going to do whether it's true or effective or he can actually do it or not as long as he keeps saying that he's going to you know going to be anti-choice they will always vote for them they don't even want to they don't even care I had somebody actually this person tell me that you know God in the Bible God picked kings who weren't the best people but he used them to do good things and I'm thinking to myself yeah but he also dumped a couple a whole bunch of them when they messed up so you know maybe maybe the Lord's going to get tired of this guy sometime you know I don't know but yeah the answer your question eight but here we are Jay we're talking about all of this stuff going on at the national level but here in right here in Hawaii we've had a police chief put on trial for corruption we've had all of this things going on we got at least three active protests what's happening in Hawaii I mean how does that happen we're not in the Trump spectrum of politics so how do we get to where we know you'll be a great guy to address that job because I think it's a question of leadership it's a question of the governor not only you know to sign proclamations or you know accept or veto approval veto legislation but to be a moral center to give us guidance give us leadership bring us together when we have to come together help us focus on the priorities and if you don't have anybody doing that things get scattered and right now I'd say they're completely scattered they're scattered on a fiscal end we we can't afford the rail and we also now we can't afford fixing a Blaisdell Center either we have unfunded liabilities enormous enormous amounts of unfunded liabilities which will catch us we have a fragile economy that's that's based on you know tourism only and if anything got in the way of that like a virus and people stop coming here oh there would be an economic crash in almost no time so we need leadership and and right now I think I think we're very fragile very exposed well let's take let's take let's take an issue like that let's let's take you know we'll talk about leadership there's an election coming up it's an opportunity for us to as voters as participants to step up and you know vote some leadership into at least a mayor Oreo race and so you know how does that happen I mean what I I don't know where to go with it frankly I don't know what kind of what would be the ideal leader in your in your I don't want to ask you who you're supporting over who's running I understand well I I think you know I think actually I used to say that nobody should run for the legislature until he had finished or she had finished the legislation 101 but that that's that's a fictitious course that doesn't exist right but the idea is that you have to have some experience in legislation and actually although people always make fun I think lawyers make better legislators that's just because of their education they understand that you know the nature of government the nature of laws and unfortunately you know I think a lot of lawyers would never consider running for the legislature well I think a lot of qualified people would never consider running for any office in the state of Hawaii it's dangerous business it doesn't pay that well and for your effort to get you know you you get hurt so you talked about lawyers but one of the tendencies of lawyers might be the fact that they don't like change you know this the whole basis of the legal foundation has to do with what we could we refer to in law school as tarry decisive and usually if you have a bad decision starry decisive means you keep making the same bad decision so I I you know where where do we find people who you know Bob Oshiro who was a franamine and one of the you know I believe heroes of contemporary Hawaii used to always talk about the dignity of political involvement that it was actually a higher calling I mean how many people actually believe that you know that they're there to do good as opposed to well let me let me be controversial you know I had some of the legislators come came out the last session and I said well what did you do they said we balanced the budget and I thought to myself you know that's let's get you a seat in my book that gets you a seat because basically you know under our constitution and laws we couldn't spend an unbalanced unbalanced budget anyway we're cash finance ultimately what we need to do is look at how we spend it you know what are we investing in who we're doing it seems to me anyway that Hawaii is going through a kind of a crisis we're trying to figure out what what our values are you know it we are right in the middle of the 2020 census and what the census is going to show us is that more native Hawaiians live on the mainland or on the continent I should say or elsewhere then live here on in the islands and I'll bet that if we had the data it'll also show that more people who grew up here live elsewhere than in Hawaii at this point in time so the real question ought to be every time we do a project every time we build a rail a railroad from on the island every time we develop high rises in kakaako we ought to ask ourselves who benefits who is the benefits who benefits by the fact that for example I grew up in Waimea which on a big island which was a sleepy town it's great it looks like Napa Valley and so we now have all kinds of people moving in but the taxes have gone up so high that local people are going to Vegas you know where energy costs the rest of it are we going through a time when people are starting to reassess the values that government is supposed to have here as well as the fact that we sure would like some leadership we've had this conversation about the brain drain and you know the hollowing out of our middle class and and the lack of housing for oh how long John it's a long time and I think that you know at this point I think actually think we've talked ourselves out and it's time for action it's time for somebody to you know put a toe in the water and actually we got we got one minute I got a minute left give me some hope this has been a too dark too dark conversation any signs of things getting better either nationally or locally but my hope is that the millennials will get into politics that they will understand what you and I have been talking about they will understand both at the state level and the federal level they'll realize that the system can be made to work that they can participate in it and the government is no good without the people and the people are no good without government each one must engage with the other and when they learn that lesson there'll be a powerful force maybe more powerful than the previous generation so my optimistic view of it is that somewhere along the line and somewhere soon I hope the millennial crowd the young people will understand that they need to get involved you know in the community at a political level so we're going to be the old guys that invite in the young guys for a change not like our parents who thought that we were crazy anyway thank you very much Jay really appreciated having you on in this conversation well the thought for apocalyptic America is that fortunately we have a new generation and they might save us all aloha and we'll see you in two weeks