 It's Wednesday. It's 11 o'clock. It's April the 21st, 2021. Welcome to What Now America. I'm Tim Apachele, your host. And today's title is GOP Concern of Extreme Candidates in the 2022 election. You know, under Donald Trump's leadership or the lack thereof, the GOP lost the president seat. They lost two critical seats in the Senate. Now they did pick up some in the House. But thanks to Donald Trump and his campaign strategy and, of course, the big lie, it hasn't gone well for the GOP. And I'm not sure 2022 is going to be any better for them. In fact, that is the concern. They are concerned deeply that we're now a party of cult for Donald Trump, following Donald Trump's personality rather than any platform of ideas or policies. The GOP has void of policies in a platform. And they're concerned. They're concerned and states that should be an easy dunk for winning the 2022 election. And there is actually discussion and concern that they may not. So that's the topic, the main topic of the day, and we have others. But let me go to my guests. Good morning, everyone. I'm welcoming Jay Fidel, Stephanie Dalton, Winston Welch, and of course, Cynthia Lee Sinclair. Good morning, everyone. Morning, Tim. Hey, Jay. Yeah, welcome. Hey, Jay, if you're a GOP member and you've been one all your life, and you know what sort of things have taken place since the election of 2020, are you concerned that you may lose the Senate further or lose a number of House seats because of the loyal following to Donald Trump? Or do we go to the point where you talked about, and that is Donald Trump is losing his luster. He's losing his hold on the GOP and his cult of personality is starting to fade out. Which way is it? The latter. Except there are a lot of factors going on. Let me identify some of the factors. It depends how close to the base I am, and it depends on how much time goes by. There's nothing so constant as change, and we are definitely in a transitional time. So right now, we're only 90 days out, but this is going to start to get serious next summer and on from there in the campaign. So a lot of things are likely to happen. And the Democratic group's attraction is growing. I think that Biden is doing a good job. A lot of people perceive that and they are learning from him that yes, you can be president and rational at the same time. And I think that it gathers and attracts people who might have been fringy on the Republican side. And then of course, as we talked about before, Trump is not getting publicity, he's not getting Twitter. He's hidden and he doesn't have the bully pulpit at all. And he can't pardon people. He can't make crazy proclamations. And as I predicted, and we all predicted a few months ago, that this power was going to slough off and thus his influence. And then money. And money is a wildcard here because there are people who gave to Green when she was craziest of all. And there are people who give to crazy conservatives and supremacists. But I would suggest to you that that's going to be on the decline. It's not nearly as attractive as it was. And I think although you could point to a lot of money that's going to those people, it's going to, it is declining. The corporate world, the corporate world sort of had an interesting moment in the Georgia Anti-Voting Rights Act, Bill. And they got liberated in a way. I'm not saying they're all going to go to the liberal side of things, but I'm also saying they cannot afford to be on the skin side of things. And I think that at least some of them are going to peel off that and not going to be as obvious, but they're also not going to give us much money. It's a factor. Okay. Let me let me address that point. If you're Mitch McConnell and you told them to keep their nose out of politics, they should probably listen to that until Mitch McConnell did a reversal and said, oh, well, when it comes to donations, keep it coming. Yeah. I'm all in favor of them keeping out of politics, but what worries me is they give to the wrong side. And I don't think it's a frog on conclusion. They're going to keep on giving to Trump and his friends. In fact, for that matter, they may be a little skittish about the Republicans. Remember what's going on in the news every day, Black Lives Matter. And we are talking about trying to heal the wounds. We're trying to deal with the racism in the country. You don't want to be on the wrong side of that question if you're a corporation subject to boycott. You know, Stephanie will boycott you and be the end of your business. Am I right? Yes. Okay. I got more. I got more. You got more. Okay. So the Bolton poll you mentioned before the show began. I don't believe Bolton, but it does sound persuasive. What did you say? 55 percent. Well, let's qualify what the poll was. This was a poll, survey poll with only independents, not Democrats, not GOP, just independents only. And the favorable for Donald Trump is 37 percent. The unfavorable was 55 percent. With those same respondents that filled out the poll, 48 percent for those people were favorable for President Biden. So quite a switch. Yeah. Well, and there's other factors too. You know, Republicans coming out in favor of Democratic propositions, Republicans coming out of actually having a platform where a Republican party for the past few years, especially that Trump didn't have a platform, didn't have a platform at its own convention not too long ago. Okay. Then you go on to the prosecutions. The prosecutions are undermining Trump's credibility. Now, they may or may not ultimately succeed. They may not ultimately throw him, you know, keep him out of office or keep him out of the political game, but they undermine his credibility and want a lot of people. As I mentioned, the Black Lives Matter is so much focused on that that has got to be having an effect on public opinion. And I think it's probably an effect that takes public opinion further to the left rather than the right. Although some people see it as a skinhead opportunity. I think for the most part, people see it as a time to get liberal. The crazy statements that Green and others make, you know, they've got to be, they've got to be of some concern to the Republican party, because she is, you know, she is making crazy statements. Who wants to be associated with that? And crazy statements that Trump himself, when he gets quoted, makes crazy attacks on McConnell and others, Pence. These are crazy statements. And if you like McConnell, I don't know if I would, but if you like McConnell and you like Pence, you're going to say, what is this? He's dividing it up. And in fact, he is dividing it up. So he's separating his own group. That's not smart. And it's likely to make him less influential. And finally, the press. The press is there. The press is relentless. I know it's not Fox News. Fox News is still as wild as it ever was. But the other press is having an effect because it's consistent and it's credible. So I think that, you know, that's going to continue and it's going to have an effect on everyone who watches or hears about it. Now, the things that run against, you know, this concern about the GOP is the fact is the white supremacist is still out there. If you saw the 60 minutes piece on Sunday, that was really scary. They're out there. They're still doing their thing. But on the other hand, they're being prosecuted. Some 400 of them are being prosecuted and investigated. And they're flipping. And we've got to see how that works out, because that could have a huge effect on this question, Tim. There has been no commission, so to speak. No insurrection commission. I don't know why Nancy stands in the way of that. Maybe she sees that somehow political risky. I see it as necessary. And a lot of people do. And unfortunately, regrettably, there was no impeachment. And furthermore, that the Republicans in the Senate were never called to task. So that's a problem. It almost makes you think that, you know, are they right? Maybe they're right. Maybe it was just boys will be boys on January 6th. And I think some people are affected by that kind of comparison. And finally, the big question which, you know, makes this all unanswerable is what's happening here? You know, the country is changing in so many ways. The one thing that I think is more effective than anything else is that we have a rational precedent. And people are saying, ah, it's time for rationality. And if he stays rational, even through all these other transitions, I think will be in good shape. And the GOP will begin swinging left. That's my answer. All right. Well, it's a good one, Jay. And, you know, I'm going to challenge it a little bit. I'm going to go to Winston, but listen in. And that is, they say all politics is local. It starts local. The concern is from the GOP is that some of these extreme candidates, one comes to mind is Senator Amanda Chase from Virginia. She is the Trump in heels. That's her self proclamation. They're extreme candidates and they're following in the path of an extreme president, ex-president. But the concern is, yes, they win the primary. Then of course, when it comes to the general election, there's not enough support to support an extreme, bizarre candidate. Winston, you think that is a correct generalized statement or does the more extreme, the better, like Donald Trump was? Extreme is never better. No matter what it is, it's never better. I think we just saw what extreme led to. So you said all politics is local just for those folks watching. I think what I'm looking at here is that in our senators, 24 Democratic and Hawaii, one Republican, 47 Democrats in the House and four Republicans. So that said, 30% of the people in the state at least voted for Donald Trump the second time. So numbers don't always add up. Polls don't always reflect what people are really thinking or feeling, or they may not feel like they have a choice or a vote in in what people are saying and what they're doing. So I think we need to kind of step back. And that's why these polls where they were predicting the blue tsunami, this last election, and it didn't happen because there's still a lot of people willing to hold on to these fringe things. And you look at Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is the head of the Republican Party right now, I think in many, many ways, or a strong section of it because look at her fundraising totals. They're enormous. That said, I was heartened to see that the people that took a stand on the January 6 riots at like the Liz Cheney, that those 10 people got a boost in their fundraising as well. So there were people that were stepping back and saying, yeah, you know what, reclaiming my party, I think is where that might be. Um, you know, I just noticed how calm we all are right now today compared to two months ago. This is not a coincidence. It's not because we changed from hunting out oats to Cheerios. You know, it's because we have a sane leader. Look how positive and optimistic Jay is. Like I was thinking like, well, what happened here? Because he's calmer now. He's thinking that people are going to come around and change to Cheerios. Well, it could be the Cheerios. And now, if that's, I've gone from caffeinated coffee to decaffeinated coffee. I am a common mellow as I can possibly be. Whatever it is is working. And so I think though that it's from the top. We have a sane, logical, rational, kind, empathetic human at the top of our political system right now. And that is bleeding all the way through everything from what we call people to how we name people instead of illegal immigrants. They're, they're, you know, undocumented or, you know, there's those words that and that sort of thing. The country's also moving on. But it's moving on sort of in a bipolar fashion. I noticed like there were these these horrendous bills against trans kids that in Texas, if you let your kid even express his trans, they may take your child away and put your child into foster care. This is insane. In other states, they will, you know, take away medical licenses of doctors who advocate for treatments that the American Medical Association, Association American Pediatric Association are saying this is proper treatment. So you're having that on some hand. And then you're having California on the other hand and Washington Washington state adopting a no gasoline cars may be sold in 2030. This is not the far feature. This is eight years down the road. And they say, and you can't buy it in Idaho either and come across the border and register it. So the country's already moved on from Donald Trump. It's moving on in these different ways. Eventually the hopefully the Marjorie Taylor Greene type of insane voices of Jewish space lasers and all of that. But just the ilk of the ugliness underlying a lot of the message will be gone as time goes by. But it will still be there. Of course, no matter what we do or who's in power, but I'm really heartened just to see how we've come so far in such a short period of time with proper leadership and role models. So I'm enjoying Jay's optimistic. I like the fact that Joe Biden's personality has kind of permeated both the stratosphere in the lower atmosphere of our existence. And it seems to be working. So yeah, good point, Winston. I appreciate that. Stephanie, I'm going to read a quote from a gentleman by the name of Scott Jennings. He's the former advisor for Mitch McConnell. And I think what he wrote was to sum up very well the concerns of those same GOP party members, not the extremists. And he said this, votes to balance their desires for certain kinds of personalities, the desires for certain kind of policies, but also their desire to win. So I mean, to weigh those things out. I mean, many people love the cult of Donald Trump and they want to stay with it. But does that necessarily guarantee a win in the 2022 election? And I think that's what Scott Jennings was trying to get at. The answer is probably not. Your thoughts about GOP concerns and the rational thinking members of the GOP. And are they well founded to have concerns for this coming election? Well, I was so excited to hear Jay's culminating comment about Joe Biden and his opinion of his leadership. And of course, Winston was very complimentary also. And I think this is so important that it came out like that. And you're speaking to it because he's not like headlong bashing into his opposition. He's doing what he knows he needs to do for the benefit of the people and according to the Constitution. So he's not grandstanding anything. He's just moving in the best way he knows possible. So all of this influence that he's putting out, you know, doesn't have any curang and bash and drums. It's just the best thinking he can do. So that is now, my worry was maybe that was going to be too subtle and not, and will take a long time to be a model that people recognize. But maybe as you said, Jay and Winston's bleeding through, it's bleeding through this comprehensive thinking about issues being informed by his story, history and the trends and trajectories were already on. That this is making a statement to people about the confidence that we now have in the White House. And another point I wanted to share was that I heard over the weekend on NPR about, or whenever I heard it, about Benjamin Franklin and his design of the national seal. And if you'll recall, there is an eagle on that seal. And so it was about the Native American influence on the development of our government. And it comes out of the Iroquois nation's ideas of how we work together. And Benjamin Franklin was directly influenced by their chief who in the eagle representation in that national design, one of the eagle's claws is holding a bunch of sticks. Okay. And what, well, who knew what that meant? Well, what that means is as the chief told Benjamin Franklin, you take one stick, he brought it up, he broke that one stick over his knee. And then you put all these sticks together and you can't break those sticks over one knee. So I think he was speaking to the critical notion that guides our country is federalism. And also having the independent states. But we're still in the Civil War was a part of this state's rights. This is how, how do we get that bundle right so that it strengthens everything and keeps the states as they're passing these crazy laws and extreme expressions of their needs that they feel in these places. How do we get that best balance of having that bundle of sticks to protect everybody and to make us strong and respected? And yet the sticks contain, you know, individual states, agendas and purposes. So anyway, I just think, and Biden kind of, you know, represents that high level thinking that actually was the instigation and the influence on our budding nation. And it's a high note to have to follow up on. I mean, it's a very expert performance that these ideals we've written, we've written into our constitution require a pretty high act, pretty, you know, but, but, all right, I'll score it in the past. You know, Cynthia, going to you, we have a question from a viewer, but I think this question kind of ties into what Stephanie just said, and that is those states, the bundle of states, but some of those states that pass these extreme measures, we know we have some extreme measures and they're certainly out of place in this day and age, but the anti voting rights that have been passed by Georgia and some other states are certainly considering them. But we just had one passed here or yes, it's passed in Florida. And that the question is, Florida passes an anti riot law that grants civil immunity to drivers who hit protesters. And the question is, should we expect more extreme laws like this? Crazy. So, you know, what do you say to a state that passes the House and passes the Senate, and I don't know if the governor signed this into law, I can't believe the governor would sign this in the law, dissent is going to be a candidate in 2024. But if this is true, which I haven't verified, if Florida did pass this, what does it say about the mentality of the GOP passing these kind of things? And does that play into the national GOP party concerned that extreme factions of the party are going to lose the 2022 election and therefore seats in the Senate and more seats in the House? Well, gosh, that's a lot. Well, I guess we'll say the Florida laws pass. It's an extreme law. Your comments about that, should we expect more crazy laws like this and falling down the Trump path? Or does it write itself up and go back to a more moderate position that the GOP used to be in years ago? I guess I was trying to understand what the viewer's question was, separated from sort of all of the stuff that you put, or was that part of all of the stuff? Okay, the viewer's question is, should we expect more extreme laws like this from the GOP and from those Trump red states? Yes, I think we should, without a doubt. Why? Why do you expect that? Why do you think that? Information campaign that is still going strong in those states. I hear from people there, and it's just like these crazy talking points. And I think, where did you hear this? Oh, Fox News, or oh, it was on the news the other day. So it's not just on Fox News. It's on regular news out there. They're normal news. So these kinds of things keep them in the dark, I think, or, I don't know if it's exactly dark, but I know when I moved to Alabama, I felt like I had gone to a different century, not just a different state, because everything was so backwards and different. And the way people think is so strange. And then to go sort of to the GOP part side of that. Okay, Governor Eric Gretens, I don't know if I pronounced his name right, but he had to resign in disgrace because he was taking sexual pictures of someone without their permission and then passing them around on the internet without their permission. And also, apparently, had abused her too and assaulted her. So this isn't a good guy. He's gone, we think. Oh, he's running for Senate in 20. I mean, and the GOP isn't saying no, I don't think so. And so that's where I go. Why is the GOP just going, oh, here, we'll just roll on board? What? I mean, Well, you know, I'm glad you brought up Eric, Eric's greeting. I'm glad you brought it up because he resigned in 2018 and Hugh Hewitt, a very conservative talk show host, very, very, you know, I like Hugh Hewitt and some of the things he says. But he said this, you're talking to a Republican, I just want to win the Senate, Eric. And I'm afraid you'll be a Todd Aiken 2.0. So this is the point that GOPs are trying to make is you got a guy who had the governor who had to resign in 2018 for these horrific things he did with this woman and he thinks nothing of it needs running for Senate. Does the GOP have some legitimate concerns about these kind of candidates? Yes, they do. And well, the regular Republicans do, but this crazy Republicans, these far right whack jobs like Marjorie Taylor Greene, they don't care. They want more people like that so that they can, I think anyway, they probably want more people like that, which would help things going for them. And we know Marjorie Taylor Greene just started a new caucus, the America first caucus to preserve Anglo-Saxon political, I can't remember the rest of it. Wait, I'll get it. It's just crazy what she wants to preserve. She wants to preserve racism. She wants to preserve backwards thinking and voter suppression. That's what she wants. Now, Georgia, I gotta say, I'm shocked that they did what they did this last time and this last election getting more or not and I can't remember the other guy's name now. But those guys elected, that really surprised me. But if we can keep, I think the African American community and the voting public really engage there in those kind of states, maybe we can make some changes. But the white people, forget it, I'm sorry. You think they're too far gone? Well, maybe not so far gone, but they're so ensconced in the way they believe and they have no exposure. So they don't know any better. So in a way, some of them are ignorant. Most of them are ignorant by choice. They know better and then they choose not to know better. So that's my thinking on it all. All right. Well, I appreciate it. I think we've kind of covered this topic quite well and if you're going to have the Eric Gretens of the world run for office, so be it. It'll be a Democrat seat in a red state of Missouri. So let it continue. Let them continue to be extreme because it'll all go into a blue column. Hey, Jay, how's Joe Biden doing on the vaccination? 50% of adult Americans have been vaccinated, at least with one shot or at least. How's he doing? And what kind of road does he have to hoe to get more Americans vaccinated? Well, don't forget it's been politicized. And there's an astronomical number of people who don't want to take it all for bad reasons. And that's his challenge. He's got to appeal to them, change their minds. And I think it's a political issue as well as a science issue. In fact, first political and science. When you hear the reasons they give for not wanting to take the vaccine, it's not persuasive and it's really silly. How do you feel about Joe Biden providing credits to employers that allow their employees off to get the vaccination and they'll get a credit? Good move. We've got to get this done. We really have to get it done because we can have another surge so easily and some places they're having surges so easily and some places they ignore all the rules, the masks, the distancing and the vaccines. It's like insanity, it's like suicide, community, social suicide. So he's got to deal with that. And I think he's doing the best job he can possibly do. It's like dealing with crazy people, but that's what you've got to do with part of the job. I want to add one of the things since we're almost out of time and that's this. We've spoken about how rational he is and empathetic and good policy, good thinking, good people, all that. And I hope that reaches into these communities that Cynthia was talking about. And maybe some of those people will hear about this and warm up to him. However, the big mission for the Republican Party, all sides of it, in Washington is to stop everything that Joe Biden does in the center, stop everything, make him look powerless, ineffectual. And the metronome we talked about last time ticks from one side to the other. The days go by and these initiatives are not happening. We don't have infrastructure. We don't have immigration. We don't have gun control. There's others too. And so what troubles me is that because as reasonable, rational as he is, he's got to have some accomplishments under his belt. And I don't think he can do all the accomplishments necessary to have the country follow him and take his signals if he can't get anything through Congress. And the other thing, the last thing I'll mention is that watch out for Russia. Okay, we know that Russia and Trump have a connection. We know that Russia would agree with Trump, stop Biden, stop every initiative, make Biden look foolish and ineffectual and weak. And now we see all these provocative things that Putin is doing in the Ukraine and Odessa. We see all these really horrible things he's doing with Navalny and the like. He's taking these hard positions and leaving Biden with this dilemma of whether to take aggressive action against him, like ever increasing sanctions. I'm not sure that really works well. You know, we're sitting on the side watching it happen. My concern, okay, is that Putin is a shill for Trump. And Putin is going to take the steps necessary to make Biden look bad. And that gets on this whole bandwagon of making Biden look weak. That's a real challenge for Biden. That's what I'm saying. Okay, thank you. Hey, Winston, we're out of time. Your last comments for this week or the week to come, your last observations or comments? I suggest that people read is the second most read opinion in the Washington Post today. The Republican Party is beyond salvation, even without Trump, a column by Max Boot. It has some interesting points in it. I would like to think that it is salvageable. But it's sort of like after a company comes out of bankruptcy. Do you trust them again? And when you do trust them, they get a secured credit card or whatever it is. But I think that's where we are. And I think that, but there's a lot of people that do want to reclaim their party from the chaos and nonsense of the last few years. So I'm definitely in the hopeful camp if Jay Fidel is. And that's where I'm going to stay this full week. So. Alrighty, you know, Max Boot, former Republican, so by no means a liberal. Yeah. Hey, Stephanie, your last observations from this week or the week to come? The United Mine workers are all for the Green New Deal. They're on Biden's side for that. They're also there for moving away from fossil fuels. And so we have a huge, huge advantage here for Joe Biden's being able to. Does that help Joe Manchin? Sure. Well, sure. Because Appalachia is mining. I mean, West Virginia, they're mining. I mean, they're coal mining. Yeah. And the other issue is, as Cynthia has addressed and everybody, the disparate understandings and viewpoints that everybody has and the lack of any of our reps and senators getting their feet held to the fire for what the job is requested to be by the Constitution. You know, we're not having any of that happen. And I'd like to submit to President Biden and the administration that we reinstate what we've lost from no longer having the draft. And that was only young men then. But we need an experience of every single person to get themselves into a service organization. Now you can take it around the world or send them to Alaska or the North, the South Pole, but something where everybody has to spend X time in this thing. And they're all, you know, squirrely up from where they come from. So the Washington State person meets the Florida person, the Alabama person meets the Alaskan and the whole. So we get some people to understand that they're closeted and they can't see beyond their own borders. And at least giving them that youthful experience and a portion of good service work to do for big causes, home or abroad or whatever it please. Let's do it again. Not the Peace Corps, yes, but not everybody was right. I love the concept of re-energizing our social contract with America and our fellow Americans. Good point, Stephanie. I'm glad you brought that up. Again, it's out of our basements too, by the way, for 18 months. Right. Exactly. Okay. Cynthia, we're out of time, but you get the last word. Your observations of this week or the week to come, your last comments, please. I almost don't want to say anything because I'm so on board with Stephanie's. That is brilliant. I think we totally need to get that started. I totally agree. I want to jump in and totally agree. Stephanie, that was brilliant. That's a really important idea. Partly new, but I mean, it just comes up in my head, especially listening to Cynthia's Alabama stories, like why are they so uninformed? Come on. These people are not stupid. We are smart people. It's just our opportunity to know is so limited in some place. I agree with your idea of it being required when you're young, because what I found was a lot of the people in the South are ignorant by choice because they want to be. Because in this day and age of internet and everything, it's impossible not to know, right? But if you're exposed to other people, then it's a whole different story, right? When you get out of your own zone and get into somebody else's, I think that's awesome. And so my last comment is Castro is stepping down and leaving Cuba. It was the first time since 1959 that there will not be a Castro that is leading Cuba. All right. Good point to everyone. I love this show. God, I guess the greatest minds in the greatest comments, the best in the West. All right. We've run out of time. I want to thank my guest, Jay Fidel, Stephanie Dalton, Winston Welch, and Cynthia, Lisa and Claire. Thank you for joining us on America Now. Join us next week, Wednesday at 11 o'clock. I'm Tim Apachele, your host, and we'll see you then. Aloha.