 I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with an individual named Madison Cawthorn, but what he managed to accomplish recently, it's genuinely impressive, and even if I disagree with him politically, you know, I give him credit where it's due. He beat a Trump-endorsed establishment Republican, and he is poised to become the youngest member of Congress. He's gonna be the first Zoomer, I believe, elected to Congress, which really is interesting, although it is a little bit depressing that it's not a lefty who is the first Zoomer, but nonetheless, you know, what he did, you know, you've got to give him credit where it's due. I was not, you know, able to run for Congress when I was 24 years old. I was still working at Blockbuster, believe it or not, trying to study for the GRE to get into grad school. So, you know, I just, I wasn't there, right? Maybe there's a little bit of class privilege, but nonetheless, you can't take away what he managed to accomplish, and his story actually is really unique in that he was in a car crash that left him paralyzed from the waist down. So he is in a wheelchair, hopefully that gives him some additional insight into, you know, the needs of people with disabilities, and he doesn't seem like an overt fascist. However, I wanna just kind of temper everyone's expectations because I think that a lot of the media is already fawning over him because they think that maybe this is the first type of Republican that we'll see in the post-Trump era if we're able to oust Trump in November. And you know, people are thinking, oh, well, maybe there's a possibility that Republicans can still be normal and not complete far-right goons like Donald Trump or Louis Gohmert. But that's not necessarily the case because as you learn more about Madison Cawthorne, it becomes obvious that there's not really much difference here. It's the same exact antiquated ways of thinking, and you know, it's just all of the same that we've come to expect with the Republican Party, albeit in a Zoomer package. And part of the reason why I think I'm a little bit salty is because the media is fawning over him when they never do this for left-wing candidates. It's like how much have we heard about Jamal Bowman or Mondair Jones or Kossom Rashid. But when it comes to what Republicans, since the media wants to try to pretend as if they're neutral and be overly fair to Republicans to correct what a lot of people view as a liberal bias, you know, they're trying to, you know, present him to Americans as, you know, a new type of Republican when that's not really what this is. But we'll get to that. I just want to show you the reaction that he got from The View, which is supposed to be a liberal show, which includes conservatives, you know, and we'll contrast the way that they responded to him with the way that they responded to AOC being sworn in in 2019. What do you think you did that made people recognize that you were the better choice? I'm just enamored by young people that get involved in the political process. So kudos to you for running at this age. I think that's incredible. At just 25 years old, the youngest person in Congress is the infamous Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and you two couldn't be more different. So they seem genuinely excited to talk about him. But here's how they talked about AOC. And you just got in there, and I know you got lots of good ideas. But I would encourage you to sit still for a minute and learn the job. So do you understand why the media is a problem here? They haven't even brought on Jamal Bowman or Mondair Jones or Kostner Rashid. And, you know, they need to be lifting up all types of voices. You hear no lefties in the media. But the minute there's a Republican who is young, who is able to string together a coherent sentence, who doesn't seem too much like an extremist like Donald Trump, well, the media just falls over themselves to prop up this individual. So, you know, that's that's a different story for a different day. But I want to talk about this individual, because as I mentioned, he was in a car accident that left him paralyzed. So, you know, something about him that you would hope is that he has more empathy. And it seems as if he actually is more empathetic, you know, in contrast with other Republicans who are ruthless, who just tell everyone basically you're on your own, you know, the government's not going to help you with anything. So if you lose your job, if you have medical bills, you know, rugged individualism for you, you only offer socialism to the rich. So here's what he had to say about what that accident, you know, did to him in terms of his outlook on life and how to treat people. It changed my whole perspective quite a bit. You know, it taught me a level of grit and perseverance that would have taken probably decades to learn otherwise. But also it taught me something that I think is lacking a lot on the Republican side in politics. And that's empathy. It's being able to feel like I can recognize when people feel disenfranchised or when they don't feel like the system represents them. And so I know what that's like, and I can empathize with that. Look, I think that that's really admirable. I don't necessarily know what that means in particular, but having empathy is a good thing. Does that mean that, you know, he supports trans rights? I don't know. But when it comes to something that's relatable to him, which is healthcare, because when he got in his accident, he had a medical bill of $3 million. So, you know, I would assume that based on that experience, you would want to make sure that nobody else in the country would have to deal with that. Except when it comes to healthcare, he doesn't actually take that position. The accident left you with $3 million in medical debt, which is why you plan to make healthcare reform one of your signature issues. And I think that's extremely admirable. You are against free healthcare for all. So I want to understand what is your plan, especially since we are seeing 20 million people quit, will be out of work due to COVID-19. So I'm assuming your healthcare plan has nothing to do with employer-related insurance. No, Sonia, it does not. You know, I thank you very much for your question. But the thing that I think is so imperative to realize is that if I was in a country that practiced socialized medicine, I genuinely believe I would be dead today. You know, at that point, whenever you're using a single payer, a free-based market of healthcare that gives healthcare to all, you obviously have to start rationing care. And I only had about a 1% chance to live. It was an absolute miracle that I was able to pull through. You know, I think my doctors, I think my God. But, you know, I know that without having a great healthcare system, I would not be here today. And so my answer, though, is that, you know, for too long, the Republicans have been the party of no when it comes to healthcare reform, whereas I really believe that we should be leading the pathway to take lower prices so more Americans can have access to it. And I think the way to do that is to decrease regulation. Because, you know, here in North Carolina, Blue Cross Blue Shield has a virtual monopoly on the entire state, and that creates artificially high prices. But I think if we could bring in some more insurance company and bring more competition and price transparency to the entire industry, we could see prices go significantly lower. I mean, you know, there's six people trying to sell a pizza to my house right now that will deliver to my house. And they're all trying to get a pizza to me, you know, for as cheap as it can be, as fast as they can, and with the best taste. And, you know, I think it's an extremely simplified analogy, but I think it's very imperative to realize that free market capitalism works and always lowers prices. I love that. Totally agree. Shut up, Megan McCain. Unblock me on Twitter, you goddamn coward. But putting that aside, if free market capitalism were the answer to all of our healthcare woes, we have the most free market healthcare system in the developed world. So wouldn't it suffice as it is? Wouldn't it not need to be reformed any further? And some of the things that he says here are genuinely stupid, and I'm really trying here to not be a dick and shit on him too much. But let's look at what he says. If I was in a country that practiced socialized medicine, I genuinely believe I'd be dead today. What? This is your moderate normal Republican America? He thinks he'd be dead if he were in a socialized medicine country? First of all, when we're talking specifically about single-payer healthcare, which is what he cited, we're not talking about socialized medicine. We're talking about socialized insurance. I wish we were having a more serious conversation about a national healthcare system like the UK has, but we're not even taking it that far. We're talking about socialized insurance. We send the bills that your private hospital gives you to the government and they pay for it, Medicare specifically. But the reason why he believes he would be dead is because if everyone had healthcare, which would be such a horrible thing, then we'd have to ration care. So the assumption is that if everyone has healthcare, that would, you know, lead to more wait times. So if he, you know, came into the emergency room with an accident, they basically just say, well, we can't help you right now. I'm so sorry. You may be in critical condition, but this person has a cold. So they were in line first. Like, that's not the way that things work. And if it were the way that a single-payer system functions, don't you think we'd be seeing a lot of cases like this in countries with single-payer like Canada, for example? I mean, they're just north of the border. We don't hear about that happening, right? What he also says is that the way we can improve our current system, because it does need improving, at least he admits that, is to decrease regulation. So in other words, impose less rules on these greedy for-profit private companies who have a fiduciary responsibility to increase shareholder value and not actually cure patients. I mean, Goldman Sachs asked literally whether or not it was a sustainable business model to cure patients, but according to him, the way that we improve the healthcare industry is to just unchain them, let their greed go unrestrained. How would that solve the problems of our health system? Don't you think that it needs more regulation? Don't you think that it's a good thing that we impose regulations and don't allow them to discriminate against patients with pre-existing conditions? How would deregulating an already rogue industry who buys politicians be the answer? And he also suggests that if there's more transparency required, which is a regulation by the way, he says he wants to deregulate, but he also wants price transparency, which is a regulation, then if, you know, these types of health insurance companies are forced to disclose their prices, they're going to be so embarrassed that they're not going to want to charge you an arm and a leg, except the thing with this is they're just going to rip you off and be more open about it. It's not going to actually deter them from charging you thousands of dollars because they care more about profit than anything. And, you know, if we have increased competition, I mean in theory that should be conducive to better prices for the consumer, right? But what's going to happen is they're going to work together to covertly price fix because that's exactly what we're seeing now. So, I mean, all of the solutions that he is proposing, on one hand, he says he's against regulation, but he proposes regulations, but on another hand, the regulations that he is proposing are the most milk-toed, mealy-mouth solutions that won't actually fix anything. His thinking when it comes to, you know, at least the policy of healthcare is right in lockstep with the Republican Party establishment, but at the same time, he's definitely not positioning himself as an establishment politician who wants Democrats and Republicans to hold hands and sing kumbaya, even if he implies that that's what he wants sometimes, because he very directly is criticizing the establishment in general. Not just establishment Democrats, but establishment Republicans as well. And even if his, you know, criticism is relatively vague of the establishment, he definitely doesn't want to be seen as someone who is establishment. Whether you're talking about the Democratic side or the Republican side, I believe we have a lot of cowardly establishment hacks who really just try to tow their party line. They don't want to shake anything up in any real way. And you know, I almost look at them kind of like how, you know, a lot of people see big healthcare, you know, they don't necessarily want to fix the problems, because then they're going to lose a lot of their clientele, or in this case, lose their talking points. So I want to go to Washington D.C. for some different reasons, not to enrich myself, not to empower myself, but to actually be a voice for the people of the United States, because I feel like we don't have that representative of Washington D.C. right now. Now, believe it or not, he was answering the question, what would he get done when he's elected in Congress, if he's elected, assuming he will be successful there, which he probably will. And he offered zero policy prescriptions, and he almost made a good point. Like he was this close when he was talking about healthcare. So he says he looks at establishment politicians the way people see big healthcare. They don't necessarily want to fix the problem, because they're going to lose a lot of their clientele, or in the case of politicians, they don't want to fix the problems, because they'll lose their talking points. Oh my God, you were so close. You were so close. You almost nailed it. Why don't these healthcare companies want to fix the healthcare problems? Well, because they don't want to lose their clientele. He's right. But why do they want to keep their clientele? What do the clientele do for these companies? They make them money, right? So politicians don't actually want to fix problems because they're making their donors money. Okay. Politicians don't give a flying fuck about talking points. If they lose their talking points, they just craft new ones a week later. It all comes down to money. It's about capital, right? The reason why they don't want to fix the problems is because they're all corrupt, not just Republicans, not just Democrats, all of them. Most people in Congress are corrupt. They do the bidding of their donors, right? There's a Princeton University study that proves this, that the interests, the policy preferences with regard to policy outcomes are reflected of elites and special interests, but average Americans have a statistically insignificant impact on policy outcomes. So it's about capital. It's about the money, stupid. And he was so close to making a really good point. So I mean, he is close to actually hitting it on the head, but at the same time, he's not, right? Like he is someone who I think that people would like because again, he's a normal Republican seemingly and he's articulate, but he's not actually making any valid points and he's out of step with his generation so it doesn't necessarily matter that he's going to be the first Zoomer elected to Congress if he's not bringing in any new ideas, right? We care about young people getting elected because they bring in a fresh perspective, but what he's bringing is more of the same. And Crystal Ball asked him, you know, as a Zoomer, how is he actually going to represent Zoomers when they don't agree with any of the policies that he's proposing? This is what he had to say. Polling suggests that my generation is overwhelmingly left leaning, but I believe that the problem with it has been is with the fault lies with the Republican Party. For so long, they've just had a poor messaging stance and we've chosen these social issue hails to die on, which I think has really created an alienation of who would be Republicans whereas the majority of my generation is filing undecided or unaffiliated. They don't think that the Democratic Party necessarily represents them and they definitely don't think the Republican Party represents them. And so, you know, I believe that if we come out with a limited government approach, which is the true cause of conservatism, one that says, hey, I want the government to get out of your life. I want fiscal responsibility. I want strong border protection and I want a strong military. I think a lot of our generation can get behind that. Let's get the government out of these social issues and social squabbles where they don't belong and let's let state governments handle that individually. But as a federal, from a federal perspective, let's just focus on keeping people safe and building the framework for people to be able to thrive in their work and in their private lives. Here's why he's wrong and this is definitely not going to attract millennials or zoomers because he's not addressing the root causes. So in a late-stage capitalist society, what are the implications of someone saying that I want to get the big government out of our lives? It means that you are adopting this alternative mode of governance. You want to get big government out, but you're going to shift the burden of governance to the free market, which means rather than having, you know, the big government lord over us, it's going to be large multinational corporations who control our lives. And you're basically opening the door to, you know, even more capitalism, which is the very system that has devastated millennials and zoomers. So if you don't actually right the economic wrongs created by capitalism, you're not going to pull them into your party. It's not going to attract them at all. What he's basically pitching here is libertarianism. This is not innovative. This is not a new ideology and another thing he said about securing our borders that is a xenophobic dog whistle. On top of that, he's actually hiding his social conservatism because he pitches to us, let's get the government out of these social issues and social squabbles where they don't belong and let's let state governments handle that individually. There it is right there. There's the social conservatism that he was trying to hide because when you say, let's get the federal government out of social issues and let the states deal with it. What that means is that if Alabama wants to discriminate against transgender people, well, we're not going to step in and get involved. If, you know, certain states want to ban same-sex couples from getting married, well, that's up to the government and this is the same thing that libertarians have been saying forever. Back in 2015, Rand Paul was talking about how we need to get the federal government out of marriage entirely and that was supposedly like the woke position to take. When in actuality, it's not woke. You're just kind of sidestepping the issue entirely because you can't get the federal government out of a lot of these social issues. You can't. Like when it comes to marriage, the federal government offers couples hundreds of benefits, for example. So, I mean, it's the federal government is inextricably linked here. So, by saying that, you're basically sitting on the fence and pretending to be woke when in actuality, you're just turning a blind eye to the bigotry that takes place in states, at the state level and it is a way to mask your social conservatism. This is what libertarians do. This is why it's not persuasive and it won't actually appeal to zoomers and millennials. So, at first, when you hear from Madison Cawthorn, he sounds like a traditional standard establishment Republican, but then he starts sounding essentially like a libertarian who's fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. But then when you go to his website, that's not necessarily the case either, because, you know, he is supposed to be a libertarian, but he says protect the unborn. Now, that's not necessarily bad at face value. It could mean that he wants the U.S. government to stop bombing babies in the Middle East and North Africa, or it could mean that he simply supports healthcare for pregnant women and babies. But then, just to the right of that, he opposes socialized medicine and he is also very proudly pro-Trump. So, he's kind of a libertarian, but not really a libertarian, because he's anti-abortion, but he's kind of like, you know, a progressive woke Republican, although not really, because he supports our explicitly racist President Donald Trump. So, I mean, if he were to take the political compass test, this is what it would look like. And the reason why his political ideology is seemingly incoherent is because he wants to be everything at once, and there's really no nuance here. And, you know, you can tell how confused he is, because he rails against the establishment, but yet he puts AOC in the same category. And on his website, it states, our faith, our freedoms, and our values are under assault from leftist coastal elites like Nancy Pelosi and AOC. I will work tirelessly for smaller, leaner government, and I will be a strong voice for faith, family, and freedom. Yeah. So, if you're putting Nancy Pelosi and AOC in the same category, you're not anti-establishment. You know nothing about how the establishment has failed, because Nancy Pelosi is very explicitly establishment and AOC is anti-establishment. So, I mean, what we're getting here is the same exact Republican mentality, but in a newer, younger package. And, you know, don't take it from me. Don't let me convince you that he's more of the same. Take it from him, because he very much explicitly supports old-school conservative ideas. I think what we need to do is really just follow the conservative doctrine of slashing regulation and getting rid of a lot of taxes. So, don't be fooled by him as the great Marianne Williamson once said at a debate, just because you have a new body doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to have old ideas. And that's exactly what we're seeing for Madison Cothorn.