 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is our Community Matters series, and we're talking today about reaching out to voters before Election Day, November 3rd. Okay, don't forget to vote every way you can. I don't mean vote more than once, though. I mean, make sure to vote. That's what I mean. Okay, this is Barry Freeman. Barry Freeman joins us from New Jersey. He's a retired educator, and we'll find out more about him as we go through the discussion. Barry, thank you so much for joining us. It's a pleasure to be with you, Jay. I have had the privilege of seeing some of your recorded broadcasts, and I'm looking forward to this event. Ah, the same here. So what's really, you know, what I love about this show is that you are doing what I would have liked to do. Maybe I still will do. A lot of people I would know. You know, one of the things is that if you're a Democrat and you want to see Biden win, do something. You can write a check if you want. Make sure you sent the right place. Or you could get on the phone and or, and you could make calls. You can make calls anywhere in the country. You could be part of a phone bank and talk to people about how they're going to vote. And Barry is doing what I think a lot of people should be doing. He's on the phone bank, and he went to do that. He's kind of a masochist, and he went to do that. And I want to explore his experience and how he got involved in that, how they taught him how to do it, how he is doing it, what he learned from it. And this is so lush. This is a lush subject. So Barry, tell us, why did you do this? And how did you get, you know, into it? How did you train up for it? Oh, my goodness. They're great questions. I could go on for hours, but I'll try and do it in two minutes. I'm a recently retired tenured professor from a large community college. And I think we're in September. I was missing, you know, a couple of classes of bright eager minds, and I needed to give, I needed to give a lecture. I needed to communicate with people. And being a strong Biden supporter, scared to death over Trump, I said to myself, why don't I get off my butt and do something other than giving money to see if I can help Joe Biden by communicating with voters on the phone, because I'm a pretty good communicator, I think. I'll vouch for that. I volunteered. I thank you. So I volunteered to do it. And then, you know, it was a unique experience. I never fully understood what it was. I had some ideas, but it's a tough, wonderful project to do. I'm happy I did it. So you had some trouble getting into the training program. Can you talk about that? Oh, yeah. The training program, it was really a thrilling event in and of itself. So I went on, by the way, I'll give a pitch to the Democratic National Committee website. If you go and just put in 20202020victory.i, lowercasei.o slash make calls. If you, you know, add to this conversation I'm having with Jay, if you're interested in doing it, go for it. It will be a life altering, changing experience. So the first thing you do is they say you need to sign up for a training session. And they're, I mean, there's got to be at least half a dozen or more every day. And so I tried once and just as I tried to get on, it got filled up. And they didn't tell me, oh, I tried again. It was filled up. I finally got on into a training call session. And that was like the next day. And it was an odd time, which had not filled up. I got on to this thing, you know, a couple minutes early. And the trainer is a millennial, more words per minute person talking, a lovely, bright, intelligent, sensitive, good young woman, probably early thirties. And she is sort of the cheerleader, the team leader and cheerleader. And she says, oh my goodness, we have 500 people signed on already. Say hello to your other callers who were in the training session. And so there's a chat thing. And I mean, can you imagine what happens when 500 people start chatting at the same time? Fabulous. And there are people, you know, all over the country. And everybody's saying, hi, it's great. We're looking for and then we get right around to the start time. And someone else says, Melissa, we now have 1500 people in the training session, and we're getting ready to close it out. So they closed it out at 1700 people all at various times on the chat board. But Melissa maintained order and took us through the elaborate telephone calling process. So the training center session, I think was already, you felt like you were the group of interested caring Biden supporters who, like Barry Freeman, were just trying to do something more other than write a check. What did she train you in? How to conduct a telephone call? How to deal with various scenarios? Yeah. And it's an elaborate system. I mean, I robo calling to the nth degree. So you never make a phone call. You never dial anything yourself. But the machine does it for you. All you do is hit a button and say, next call. And then you wait about 15, 20 seconds. And someone says, hello, that person's name is up in the left hand corner of your screen. And you got a script in front of you. And you say, hello, good afternoon. My name is Barry. I'm a volunteer for the Democratic National Committee. And I, and usually at that point, the phone is hung up. Not always, but it seemed like around two-thirds of the time. So being a college professor for 34 years, I'm pretty good on my feet. And I certainly do add living with my students in class. So forgive me, DNC, but I modified the script a little. And what I did was I said, hello, this is Barry. I'm a volunteer. Didn't say Democratic National Committee. And I'm doing a survey that would just take you one minute to complete. That gets you a better result? Marginally. Marginally. To fully respond, I had to jump to the conclusions and the final percentages of what happened. But for me personally, when I got someone who said, I'm voting for Joe Biden, and I would say, that's wonderful. I'm with you. And some of those conversations, those, you know, some people hung up. And other people, I couldn't get them off the phone to make this extra auto-dialing thing. Because I encountered many passionate Joe Biden supporters. And it was interesting to me because I called into three different states. I didn't call, but the auto-dialer got me calling. So if I called early in the morning, or in the early afternoon, I sort of got every time, New York, Long Island, could be upstate New York, Syracuse, a couple calls. Then if I waited to the later in the afternoon, I think it was because of time zones. I was calling the dialer, was dialing Ohio. And totally different, Ohio. And then if I called in the evening after dinner, if I still hadn't had enough pain from making these calls, although joy and pain, I then got California. And that too was another experience. So what was different about Ohio though, Barry? You lowered your voice and I wonder what you meant. It just wasn't as lively as New York. New York was different because that's where I encountered the greatest number of answering machines. And the phone, the automatic dialer, it connected. So I'd have to sit there and listen to the run-on answering machine. And I left a little pro Biden message for the machine. What would you say? I would say I'm so sorry I missed you. And I wish I had the opportunity to tell you a bit about Joe Biden and why he is honest and trustworthy and reliable, as opposed to Donald Trump, who's wacko, narcissist, and really not too smart. I mean, I could have gotten more intense, but I, you know. Did you leave a number for them to call you back? Could you do that? No, I couldn't. But this, this is interesting, really interesting, Jay. There were of all 100 calls, you know, by the way, the number of hang-ups was 59%. 59% hang-ups. But of the 100 calls, 23 were Biden supporters. And what I found was at the very end of that, the script says, try to ask them if they would be willing to make phone calls on behalf of Biden, if they would volunteer to be part of a training group. And three people did volunteer. For them, in order, I was required to and I succeeded one of my major accomplishments. They have to give me their email address, their full name, and their home phone number. And I don't know about you, Jay, but I don't think oh, no, that's here to do that. A lot of information, really. A lot of information for Barry, a volunteer calling from New Jersey. Must be your style, Barry. Perhaps. I've often thought I should have been selling life insurance. But those calls were truly exciting. And I felt it restored my faith in humanity. And, you know, sort of counterbalanced the majority of hang-up calls. And they'd be honest with you. And your listeners, I've got to say, I mean, how many times have I picked up the call and just hang it up? And you don't want to say anything because it's a waste of time in 99% of the... I mean, I've hung up on a couple of my physician's nurses. If they're not clear and say who they are and why they're calling, you know, and I get a robo-call or many of the deferment or appointment things, a robo-call, I just hang up. Yeah. So you probably hang up to anything that smacks of that 100% in time. And so I wouldn't be dismayed if it was only 52% of the time. That's okay. It sounds like they were agreeable to talk to you. But it also sounds like your list did not include any Trumpers. All right. I didn't know that. But as you mentioned today, I think you're on the money. And I think these were registered Democrats. And they were still turned off by the idea of a survey or a poll or an unsolicited phone call. But I never... I mean, it had to be because I never encountered, even when I deviated from the script and I said, I'm a volunteer. I'm doing a political survey, not mentioning Democratic National Party. And I just want to ask you questions for one minute. And I thought if one of those people I had reached and given that line were Trump supporters, they would have gone for the bait and said, no, I'm for Trump. And we got to get Trump because he's so smart. And he's so honest and he's never told a lie. You didn't have that experience. No. Your observation is correct. There was never a Trumper or a Trump leading person that I encountered in the hundred phone calls that the robo dialer dialed for me. I was telling you that in my own experience, these numbers and names that come up on the robo call or on the list that is given to somebody makes calls like this are names of say registered Democrats, registered Democrats. The inclination would be that this person would be a Democrat. And if you were on the other side of the coin, you'd be getting a list of registered Republicans. So the likelihood for a registered Republican would be Trump, the likelihood of Democrat would be Biden. And the purpose I was telling you at least as far as I understood is that the calls, at least the ones from the DNC are intended to confirm a pre inclination by that voter. If he's inclined to vote for Trump, I rather Biden, then your job is to confirm that and make that ever clear and take away any ambivalence about it. I got a one minute funny story that validates what you're saying. And it happened to me personally, where I live in a community, it's a fairly well to do community with two acres zoning in Northern New Jersey. And everyone in this town is Republican. So if I have to, if I want to register, if I want to vote for the mayor or the town council, critical positions in this small town, then I have to be a registered Republican. So here's another thing I'm confessing to, you can't tell the DNC, I deviated from the script, and you can't tell my blessed mother in the memory of that I registered as a Republican because it's the only way mom that I could vote in the town. Is this a great country or what? But the point of the whole story and all that background information is I'm a registered Republican on that, on the rolls. And so I got a caller confirming my plan to vote for Trump. And that poor guy got a mouthful. I never had so much fun in my whole life. I said to this guy, you know, sir, I gotta tell you, you are a very intelligent person, I can see you're well educated. How can you support Trump? What do you mean? And then I took him through the litany of, you know, 20 major bankruptcies of Trump University ripping off poor people of lying and cheating and being a con man. And in the end, he hung up on me. He couldn't take it anymore. But that does show you, though, this whole idea about only calling people who are registered in the party that has asked you to make the call. It's that divisiveness. You're not really in a position to try to change anybody's mind only to reconfirm what is already in that person's mind. You know, like Felix Frankfurt has said, one decides on the basis of what is already in one's mind. It's the same thing here. And I really wonder, you know, A, that reflects the divisiveness in our country. Because that's the way these calls have been made a long time already. But B, we live in our own little little bubble. And we can't, we really can't get anybody to cross over. I do want you to talk about your own efforts, whether as a caller or just somebody who talks to people, your own efforts to change somebody's mind, to get somebody who is a Trumper to vote for Biden. How has that gone for you, Barry? It's been extraordinarily difficult. But Barry being Barry, very persistent, and I've had some difficult students in my classes who I have been able to bring around. You know, some ran out and left, but others I was able to transform. Personally, I have had a number of friends, you know, for a long, I had one friend, Phil. I don't think he's listening, but he lives in Oyster Bay, Long Island. There's a beautiful house overlooking Long Island Sound and a lovely sailboat that we use together right down on the waterfront there. Phil was a diehard Trump supporter. His wife was not, Peggy was not, and she said, Barry, you got to do something to help me out. He, I don't know, what are you? And that went on for a couple of years. And I would send him stuff occasionally, and he would almost always reject it and send it back. And I got to tell him that's true. This is about four weeks ago. Phil sent me an email saying, Barry, I've had it with the Trump. He's putting, he's killing himself, and I just can't be part of it anymore. You know, Joe may be starting with dementia, but I need an honest guy. I need a trustworthy guy. I'm off the Trump thing. So very interesting. That's a dream email. We should all get those emails by the hundreds of thousands, but we're not. So in that case, you were able to prevail, I mean, able to advocate successfully. Any other cases? I have another one, a retired marketing buddy living on Cape Cod. And when Trump got elected, this name is also Phil, a different Phil, lives in Mashpee on the Cape near Hyannis. Phil said, you know, I'm not sure about this guy, but I voted for him to shake things up. And we need some fresh blood in Washington. You know, it's just, it's dying. Well, Phil and I continued to email back and forth, and I said, Phil, did you see this? I mean, well, you know, let's say, and let's say, well, Phil is no longer voting for Trump. And I can't tell you the specific point in time. But he's an older gentleman in his mid 80s, sharpest attack, living on his own, driving, going to the supermarket. And he said, I can't live with Trump anymore. Yeah, look at the Lincoln project. You know, those guys are Republicans, they, a lot of them probably voted for Trump in 2016. But they have, they have seen the light since then. And now they're putting money in and creative effort into some very effective commercials on behalf of the Lincoln project. And those commercials are, to me, very persuasive, because they're evidence based. They're not just rhetoric. So I wanted to examine with you, Barry, what you learned in this process, or putting it another way, what you are learning, and an expectation of what you will learn going forward. First, I mean, the big thing about making political calls like this is, it's, it's, you feel rejected a lot of the time. It's, it's, it's a, it's not a good feeling. Can you talk about that? Well, after you make the first half dozen, and their hangups, it is a rejection. And you do first hand that emotion. And then after a while, you really get immune to it. I mean, you get tired of saying, good evening, my name is Barry. It's just a boring, dumb kind of a feeling. But I don't, I still persisted. Because, you know, up until this discussion with you, I had lost track of the fact that I had not encountered one Trump supporter. And to be honest with you, Jay, that's what I was really looking for. Because two days ago, when the delivery man for the rock salt company that, you know, from my water softener came, and he was there a year ago, and he was Trump, and, and, and we greeted each other. And he said, are you still buying? And I said, yeah, you still Trump, he said, yeah. And then I worked on him again. So I work on people with specific, and you know, if I ask them, what is it? What good things has Donald Trump done that make you want to support him? And usually the answers are nonspecific. And I won't want to say that they're not educated, but they're not really aware of what's going on as, as you and I are. Well, that's, that's a very interesting takeaway from your experience that, that you were doing confirmation calls with people on the DNC, Democratic registered voters. So it's likely you're going to find either people who didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to take a robo call, or people who, you know, voted, voted for Democrats and would vote for Biden. This is, it's very, it's not likely that you would hit a real trumpet there. And, and so you could do your advocacy with the Trump. And this is a flaw, I think, in the system. It would be better to have a, a smarter, if you will, a smarter list, where you can cross over a little bit, where you can talk to like anybody at random, any voter anywhere in the country and, and, and hit one where you could really have this conversation. And, and I think Democrats, for that matter, the Republicans would be better off if they had calls coming across the aisle, because then you could have a chance to advocate. Now that's an art form advocating with Trump, because they got, they got, you know, why do you like Trump? He's strong. Really? Is that, is that how you, you know, I mean, Stalin was strong. You want to do that? Is that what you want to do? So, you know, it's very interesting that you could get into a really fabulous conversation with someone, especially as a college professor, and take him down the path of logic and history and philosophy and all this and actually have a material effect on his perception of the world. But you didn't have that chance. I promise you this, Jay, that I'm on the good guide list with the DNC and all of this calling, and they're sending me emails after I make 10 or 20 calls and how did it go and whatever. I, I, if I have to work my way up the chain of command, I will get this suggestion that you have just made that I totally endorse into the system. And it might be a caller option. See, some callers maybe a little afraid to take on a Trump or head on. I mean, I, I, I'm, I, I, that's the one truly disappointing thing here. I never had that opportunity to talk with a Trump or on the phone in California or Ohio or upstate New York in the same way I talk to a delivery person in my driveway or to someone else I meet in my normal comings and goings. You know, my recollection Barry is that the way DNC gets the voter list they put in that program. And for that matter, the public and party gets the voter list they put in their program. You buy them. You buy them. I don't think they're very expensive. The Republicans could buy Republican lists and the Republicans could buy Democratic lists. Be far more effective. Absolutely. I will be going on and continuing to do my own one-on-one campaigning. And I will suggest to the DNC that they do what you and I agree should be done. It's missing. The other thing I wonder is, so what is going to change people? What is it? And I also tell people go on to YouTube and just Google Trump and some subject. And when you see many of the YouTubes where he says stupid things or he, I mean, I don't know whether those, the ones I see are all hyper negative Trump and that maybe because YouTube is feeding me back what I previously looked. So I looked at Randy Rainbow. I'm sure that's the case. And I get automatically. But I wish I, I wish there were a way to get Trumpers to look at YouTube clips, which truly portray Trump's tragic weaknesses. I agree with you. And I think if you had the chance, especially you, if you had the chance to confront people on those things and answer the reasons they give you for their, their support of Trump, you might be able to change a lot of minds. The problem is, it's a practical problem is that you're not going to be able to reach him. You could make the recommendation of DNC. I'm not sure that would stick or be implemented in the event. There's no time because these mail ballots are going out already exactly in the next few days. And people are going to, you know, given all the publicity, people are going to send them back right away instantly or drop them in one of those drop off boxes. And so, you know, the, you know, Jean-Paul Sartre, they just don't fit. The game is up. It's already established. And the only, the only question here is how many people could actually express their votes and get their votes counted. That's, but I think most voters already know what they're going to do. And you got to give me a prediction, Barry, that we only have a minute left here. Give me a prediction. What do you think is going to happen? All of these things considered, including the bubbles, you know, and the, the failure to cross over. I believe that there are many more people out there in the country that are not counted by the polls who are pro Biden. I think Joe is going to be elected by whatever number of points, whether it's five points or seven points or 10 points or maybe even more. I think it will be, I'm an optimist, Jay. And I think the right thing will happen and the same person will get in and the insane person. My fantasy there is that after he leaves the White House on January 20th, that the New York state police come and take him away and bring him to Rikers Island pending trial by Cyrus Vance. Okay. Well, I think, you know, next time we speak, you're going to tell us how you really feel. And I hope, I hope we can speak, you know, again soon, maybe after the election, see how it came out. In the meantime, though, why don't you see if you can get one more telephone number, Barry Freeman, and call Trump himself and say hi and tell him you're conducting a little poll and you'd like to address any concerns he has. Barry, you have a question here. Is there any good way, viewer question, is there any good way to persuade more young people to actually get out and vote or participate? Great question. It really is. There are no easy answer. The way I had done it for 34 years that I was a college professor is I would ask, how many people are planning to vote? And when 25% of the class raised their hand, I said, wait a second, don't you realize if you don't vote, you may end up in, you know, I said either Vietnam or you may end up in Afghanistan or you may be somewhere, you need to follow the politics to protect your own life in addition to helping your country. So I try to personalize it to the people in the classroom. But it's a good question. Whoever gets the answer to that will be really helpful to America, to the betterment of our country. Okay, one more time let's put that link on the screen. If people want to check in and participate in the telephone call program, they can go to this link. Meanwhile, we're out of time. Thank you, Barry. Great to talk to you. You're doing a good job. Thank you. Thank you so much, Aloha.