268- Political Lessons, Drama and Satirical Humor Unveiled
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Welcome everyone to Politically High Tech with your host, Elias. Before, I like to go with my little random monologue. I want to criticize Riverside once again. We have like a love-hate relationship. Sometimes it works, sometimes we're at each other's throat. It gave me a new problem with my memory storage. Last night, I said, oh crap, I better get it fixed or else I have to cancel two interviews. I'm not having that. I'm not going to have that happen. No, no.

I'm a fighter. You know, I broke like doing it, but it worked. But, you know, that's just me in Riverside. That's my little complaint, my little rant, my little first world problem. It is a first world problem. Let's be real. It's not the end of the world. I'll just use another software. Right. But anyways, that's New Year's resolution for me, even though a lot of them are going to fail. It's been proven.

I mean, the high end is 92% are going to fail by the first month. And the more optimistic reporting, 80% of them are going to fail. That's why I don't make them. Now, you haven't introduced me yet. I don't know if I should chime in. Oh, no, that's fine. They already know who you are. For those of you who've been sleeping under the rock for the past four years, all right, this is Jeff Ward. I wish I had. Yes, that's who I am.

And yeah, no, I still laugh about... I used to call them the New Year's resolutioners and I'd write columns on them and oh, would I take crap for it. But you know, I don't do gyms as much anymore. I got too allergic to chlorine. But you know, you go out there and...

You know, I go with a plan when I go. And, you know, they try to beat you in a foot race or beat you in the pool, and you just start laughing. And you know they're going to all be gone by Valentine's Day, if that. But, yeah, I think my New Year's resolution, and I typically don't make them, is I am going to get the diary of a curmudgeon, although it's not called that anymore, out there. That's it. Well, look at that. I mean, I don't really believe in New Year's resolution, too.

Yeah, I mean, it's going to be an anti-New Year's resolution kind of episode in a way. So I'm just saying I don't believe in that myself. If I'm going to improve, I got to improve ASAP. I don't wait for the new year. Improvement is a gradual thing. You know, whenever you kind of say I'm going to go from point A to point Z, it's just not going to work. I mean, I was encouraging some folks on Facebook, you know, just you don't have to. I haven't run in a while. It's winter here.

But I mean, I do walk twice a day. Just get out there and walk. You don't have to do insane stuff. If you walk day after day after day, it starts having a very positive effect. You don't even have to walk all that quick.

But I'll get off my soapbox. At least this one. No, Ed, bud, it's practical advice. Just walk. You don't have to do cartwheels to perform Olympian-level tasks to shed 100 pounds. Running a marathon is a great goal, but I've never run one. Partly because I'm a sprinter. So, yeah. But don't go to the gym, burn yourself out, annoy all the real athletes and workout people, and then be gone.

Look, they bliss genetically with those gifts. Most of us are not. Let's be real. I think we have bashed your New Year's resolution already. Well, it is hilarious. Yeah, I do find it hilarious. I do enjoy the party, though. I'll say that much. That I always guarantee. I'm too old, sir. Although I did manage to stay up till almost nine o'clock on New Year's Eve. Oh, that's something.

I mean, look, look, it's just a year change and all that. I mean, I just always like the festivities. I'm not doing New Year's resolution goal. If I make one and miraculously keep it, then I'm shocked. Yeah. Or you could do, you know, like Jim Gaffigan. My New Year's resolution is to eat pasta every day. You can kind of turn it to something that you can easily do. In my case, I could make one to swear every day. Yeah.

Though I don't need any encouragement. But anyway, but we digress. So what are we talking about today, sir? Well, let me just introduce you real quick for the sleepy people. You know, I got to assume the worst. For some of you who are still drunk somehow at this point. Yeah. Where's Jeff Ward? Who is he? Who the heck is he? For those of you who have been following, you know who he is. For those of you who are new...

Jeff, what are you going to say to these new or sleepy heads that have no idea who the heck you are? Well, you know, the ball started in this regard as an opinion columnist for the Suburban Sun-Times newspapers back in 2006. And that was the, you know, for those who know Illinois, Aurora, Beacon News, Elgin, Courier News, occasionally the Naperville Sun,

I wrote for a lot of people for, you know, eight and a half years. Then I went on my own. I still write at thefirstwar.net, all spelled out, two columns a week, though, you know, people aren't good about donating. I'm going to have to deal with that. After writing and covering so many political campaigns, not only did I start running campaigns, but I wrote the book, the textbook. So you want to win a local election, which you can find on Amazon, right?

I mean, the full color paperback, it's like, like I said, it's a manual. It is a little expensive, but you can always get the e-version for $29.95. It's like having a campaign manager in your back pocket. Things have gone very well in that regard, Elias. I mean, like we said off the air, I don't think December 5th was a great night for the country, but I had a pretty good night.

I was, I've been, I'm the latest in-house campaign coach slash manager for the Kane County Democrats. I'm so, normally I kind of take the middle ground, but I'm so fed up with these MAGA motherfuckers, they're at first swearing, that I decided to do something about it. And I was tasked with four and a half candidates and three and a half of them won. So I am now responsible for getting three candidates

of the Kane County-wide elected officials elected, the sheriff, the state's attorney. They can't prosecute you as much when you get them elected. And the coroner, which was a bit of a surprise, but we pulled that one out. I also flipped a longtime Republican county board district blue, defeating a MAGA candidate that would have been a nightmare.

So I had a good night, but the country did not. And I'm an author. I mean, I still I need to get the curmudgeon or how I learned to stop. You think I know the titles of my own books? I found out the word diary is poison in book titles, unless you're Anne Frank or a wimpy kid.

So I had to change the name from the Diary of a Curmudgeon or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pandemic to The Curmudgeon or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pandemic. I got to get it out there or I got to self-publish it. But what happened is, as you know, the Unabombe podcast with Pineapple Street Studios came along. Suddenly I had the gravitas I needed and I'm 51, 52,000 words into that book and it's going very well. So I'm an author, um,

What else am I? Sports better. Not that that matters. It's taken a little while to readjust to hockey and basketball, but I have done so. You know, when you're, I don't know what, anyway, I enjoy sports betting as well. And I got to do a book on that because if I had to do it, the tuition I've paid, and if I had to do that all over again, I would not do it. It takes a lot of work and I have made officially made money.

in 2024. I don't know how much, but I've done all right. So there we go. I don't want to bore anybody with any more.

That's a good summary. And trust me, you could have you could have you could definitely elaborate much more. But that's I believe that's that's definitely good. So you already touched on a little bit on the Democrats, even though I say I do say it's locally because you do touch on something. That's just your I think even a couple of Texas Democrats were smart. There's a campaign their own way. They kept their seats. They listen to their district.

Hell, that's basic politics. Pay attention to your own audience instead of just what the National Democrats are saying. I mean, I was very critical of the National Democrats and even Kamala Harris. You know, I do give her some credit where people wasn't giving her credit. I'd be out of mixed bag. I'd end up voting. I predicted outright. Most of my predictions are correct. I was not. I thought I mean, even Republicans thought Trump was going to lose.

But, you know, the Democrats made a number of mistakes in messaging nationally, which I did not allow. And I've gotten, when I say I did not allow, I've gotten, you know, the sheriff's candidate and I, I mean, there's times when I told him if he didn't behave, I'd beat the crap out of him, though he's like five inches taller than me.

You know, this time around, I learned to kind of guide people a bit better. But the reason that the reason the Kane County Democrats were successful and that's Kane County, Illinois, we've got most of Aurora, Illinois, the second largest city, most of Elgin, Illinois, the state's seventh largest city. So you've got these Democratic strongholds surrounded by fading Republicanism, you know,

Still, Democratic candidates can have the upper... I'm sorry. Republican candidates can have the upper hand. But the MAGA idiots here, I mean... You know, the column... Oh, now I'm drifting too much. They weren't that difficult to beat, especially when I could get in their heads by use of columns. And it was nothing untoward. You know, how does one...

apply satire and hyperbole elias when the reality is even stranger because you know i wrote a one of the candidates i beat had a rap sheet that was insanely long and four charges of driving with open alcohol as i put in the column most of us get drunk and then drive not me

We don't get drunk while we drive. So that was pretty easy. And I had to go with that one. The other thing is I had a great source come forward and the idiot Republican chairman here owes $44,000 in back taxes to the IRS to the point where they put a lien on his home. So when you have stuff like that, you know, so that's one place the National Democrats fail.

You know, you don't have to. I mean, how? Firstly, it's not that you want to focus on Trump, which is what they did. Oh, dire things. We've survived idiot presidents before and we're going to survive the Grand Cheeto. Sorry. You know, it may be rough, but it's going to happen. But if you use humor appropriately.

Or do what John Fetterman and Senator Fetterman in Pennsylvania does. You can get your point across without...

being that polarizing. And, you know, I mean, look at what people are doing with Donald Trump right now. The pictures of he in a red evening gown with long hair walking with President Musk. It doesn't take much to get him off task. But when you say he's a threat to democracy, which he is, when you say all this, it doesn't work. You know, one of the things my candidates did, with the exception of

Me writing about the county board candidates, you know, it's like, dude, you know, if you're going to run for office, come out and admit you had a rough youth. Don't wait for me to find it. But I didn't let any of my candidates do that stuff. That's the first thing. Number one lesson from Jeff Ward is don't mention your opponent.

Because, I mean, the average attention span of an American as rated in 2024 is 8.25 seconds. It's less than a goldfish. So, you know, if you keep saying Trump, Trump, Trump, what are they going to remember?

And it's even worse at the local level when you don't know the candidates. So the first thing I said was, don't mention the other person. That's the bottom line. The second is, we're not going to steal your science. We're not going to go after you except for record, political track record, personal track record. It's worth it. But this candidate had, I mean, I spent so much time researching candidates

His criminal history. And, you know, I don't think there was any felonies. That the DuPage County website thought I was a robot and booted me off their court clerk site. You know, so...

Then, okay, you know, and especially when he was taking on the better candidate, Ted Pennis, in a bad way. But don't mention the other person. You know, run on your value. And if you don't have that message, why are you running? So that's the first thing. The second thing is, you know, I would love for my candidates to always say the right thing. That's not going to happen.

But what you can at least do is prevent them from saying the wrong thing. And that in and of itself is huge. Like my favorite candidate in this run, well, my second, well, my favorite male candidate in this run put up too many union endorsements. And the thing is, Elias, if you're running as a Democrat, we already know you have union endorsements. It would be weird if a union didn't endorse you. And I said, once you put those on Facebook, your opponents who are

idiots, again, you should read the one column on the Kane County, I'm sorry for digressing, but an inside source explained that this is the Kane County Republican Party. This is MAGA-ism. Is it okay if I digress here a little bit? Okay. First, they decided, somebody made up a story that migrant buses were showing up at Kane County polling places in the heart of Kane County Republican Dome.

Full of migrants who came in at the last minute and voted for Democratic candidates, putting a couple over the top. So there's a big schism in the party because there's those folks who know what real Republicans are. And then there's these morons. So one guy decided to troll him. And I put the picture up in the column.

With a picture of a bus, and this is all photoshopped, with Harris Wall signs on it, and migrants descending upon a northern King County polling place. Well, they took this, and by the way, my wife looks at it and goes, the pavement doesn't even match up. They took this and ran with it, and they decided they were going to send down the Republican County Clerk's Office and demand that

that the results of the King County chairman be reversed. Well, one of the people in the room who has, you know, a little more sense, which is it's not set the bar too high. So, well, if we're going to try to overturn an election, why don't we do the coroner's race? Because he only lost by 3000 votes. And they're like, oh, no, no, no. He's a Freemason and Freemasons worship the devil. Now, I'm not making this up, sir.

And I know you're muting, but, you know, I can see you laughing. And it just got worse. So they showed up at Jack's office. Jack Cunningham, my former boss, the Kane County clerk. And they decided that Jack's hospitality, which is legendary. In fact, it's so legendary, Elias. I did a column on it and people wrote in to go, you're dead on about Jack.

But they decided, this is the Republican chairman of his ilk, that Jack was faking this kindness in an effort to throw them off their game. So they went into his office with the plan to get kicked out, which they got kicked out, so they could prove that Jack has it in for them. And by the way, Jack is the only Republican candidate that wins anymore in Kane County. In my deal with the Democrats, I said, I will not work against Jack. That's the only caveat. So that's the Republican Party.

I mean, thankfully, when I posted the fake picture on the first war, that again, all spelled out and shut them up. They've got to stop going down that line. So, you know, first of all, let your opponent hang themselves because 90 percent of the time in this era, they will. But the Democrats couldn't let Trump hang himself. They just couldn't do it. They had to keep going after him for the obvious.

Let me interject for a second. I have advised Democrats, let Trump be Trump to the point he'll hang himself and shoot himself in the foot because he won't do that. But the Democrats said, I was crazy. I was like, you know what? No, you're going to lose. He's going to be president. People were shocked when I said that. And that ended up happening in 2016. And 2024, to some extent, a little less surprising.

Yeah, I just didn't think people could vote for an idiot. I keep that kind of idiot. I mean, go into work tomorrow morning and behave like Donald Trump and you won't have a job by 10 o'clock. So that was my first thing. And thankfully, I did get them to say the correct things, too. But I kept them from saying the wrong things. I got Ted to take all the union endorsements down.

you know, off his page. And they did try to use it against him, but it's not the same. It's not the same if you can't post it and they couldn't, they waited too long. Um, and stick to your game plan. You know, our game plan was to, Oh, I don't want to say too much. That's professional secrets, but we executed it and we won. And in fact, and part of it was, you know, the, the Kane County Democrats get governor JB Pritzker money. And you know, the Pritzker family,

They have more money than God. So that made a difference. I actually got paid real money to be a campaign manager, which was a lot of fun. And the other difference is what the Democrats lack is Mark Gately, Kane County Democratic chairman, is the best party chairman I've run into in my entire life. Not only do I thoroughly enjoy working with him, but that man can herd cats. And again, if you can keep your guys from doing stupid shit,

which isn't easy. It's a huge leg up, especially in a balanced county like Kane County, you know, which is now shifting towards the Democratic side. So those were the things that really worked. I also knew what doors to target. I don't...

You know, Barack Obama, VoteBuilder, the Democratic database, you and I have discussed that, is the most amazing tool on the planet. That's why Barack Obama won nine out of nine battleground states. I just don't think the current Democrats execute it quite as well. But to get to the National Democrats, and I thought they could overcome it. First, this country still isn't ready for a black female president. And it's really, you know, I hate to say it, there was an initial...

when she announced, but I think Joe Biden would have done better. You know, I mean, Harris nailed Trump in the debate. It didn't matter, did it? So that's the first problem. Again, I wish I made the rules, but I don't. So that's the first thing. The second thing, again, we discussed. If all you do is talk about Trump, you're giving him, it's free advertising, particularly considering Trump

Especially when you consider, you know, just talk, talk, talking about him. It just gives him all the advertising. What did the Democrats stand for? And here's the thing that really frosts my flakes. The economy has been great. We're the only first world country that didn't have a post-COVID recession. You know, inflation was supply chain issues and price gouging. Birdseye CEO. Yeah, we screwed up. Now people aren't buying our vegetables. No shit.

And, you know, unemployment's at all-time lows. You know, Donald Trump's – they should have used Trump's favorite indicator against him, the stock market. And it's almost like – I mean, on the one hand, they were far better than in 2016 when Elizabeth Warren said, I'm going to have a trans high school student pick my secretary of education. What the –

It's like talk about killing your candidacy in one sentence. You and I have discussed this. It takes a concerted effort to win an election. No grand gesture can do it, but one stupid thing can lose it. So they were, you know, the squad, she kept her mouth shut. The squad, of course, Ilyan Omar is, was Israel saw that she wasn't reelected. Um,

was strangely silent so that was a huge you didn't have this constant the the cancel culture has faded because they you know you and i discussed this the cancel culture has provided the very reality which they've railed against now we've got all sorts of anti-transgender laws you know and why does the democratic party get hung up everybody live a good life

But why does the Democratic Party get hung up on 2.5 percent or 1.5 maybe percent of the population? I'm sorry. And they didn't do that as much, but it wasn't enough. They didn't laud the economy. They don't speak. I mean, the Rust Belt, with the exception of Illinois, because we're a very Democratic state, destroyed everything.

You know, Wisconsin, Michigan, states that were in play, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio should secede from the union, but that's another podcast. So, yeah, I mean, the lack of a decent Democratic message other than Trump sucks. I just don't understand why they let the Republicans...

have the floor on a terrible, on a great economy, I mean. And the economy is great. You know, when I was doing the WRMN radio show out of Belgium once a week, I was dared to write the positive stuff about Joe Biden. And it wasn't that difficult to write. He did a lot of good stuff. But again, Democrats feel like, oh, you know, we've got to be hung up on all this crap. We could count on our working class white folks.

and minorities like we always do, and you can't. They found out that not all Hispanics want migrants here. They found out that, you know, if you don't argue that it wasn't inflation, it will be perceived that way, and people didn't forget. The infrastructure improvements that Republicans never do, they didn't do any of that. And so Biden, and that's the other thing.

You know, I remember in and I wrote a column on this and one of my favorite readers made me laugh about it. I don't know if you recall. I think it was a 60 Minutes interview with it was with Dick Cheney. I don't know if it was 60 Minutes and the comment and they were going through that. When Dick goes out in whatever hotel room, it's got to be 72 degrees. Fox News has to be on the TV. And so the 60 Minutes interviewers interviewing him, that's a little redundant.

And he said something about the latest scandal. And Cheney looks at him and goes, so? It's like Democrats need to learn to say, so? That's what Trump does. I mean, Trump appeals to people because most Americans are fuck-ups. There I said it. That want to justify everything they've ever, every stupid thing they've ever done. You know, I look at this and

Now, between you and me, there's a few obvious Trump supporters in this neighborhood, and someone might have called court enforcement on them for certain things, and that went well. But, you know, it's like they screw up constantly. You know, here's this MAGA idiot for county board with a rap sheet longer than both my arms. Jeez, I thought I was a heinous reprobate.

For all my disorderly conducts, which have been expunged, by the way. But thank you. But it's like, you know, that's that's the whole thing. That's what the Democrats don't understand.

That if you leave this vacuum open, Trump comes in, this man has cheated on every wife, slept with a porn star, tried to steal an election, incited an insurrection, cheats every business he's ever dealt with outside of his own, which have pretty much all gone bankrupt. I mean, you go down the line, this guy is a massive failure.

But that speaks to the massive failure that's most Americans. So you have to present something different from that. And the Democrats didn't do it, or at least not present the stupidity. Now, that worked in Kane County. I don't know if that would have worked nationally because the Democrats have gone too far down the progressive road. And of course, then you get the progressives, oh, you're not progressive enough. No, my God, black people voted for Donald Trump.

Donald Trump doesn't like black people. You know, Hispanics, I kind of get that. And that's, you know, the migrant situation. Now, granted, Trump was who? Who told Mark, the party chairman, Trump was right. Stop Biden from getting an immigration victory. Biden should have been smart enough to get around that. I'm sorry. Or you make a bigger deal about it. But and by the way, well, we want to talk about what Trump can't do.

So the messaging, it was certainly it wasn't as bad as 2016 because it couldn't be. You know, you have to learn some lessons. 2020, you know, Trump, you and I have talked about it, Elias. Trump blew COVID. That's why he lost. Plain and simple. It's going to come to these shores and just go away.

No, it isn't. You know, the other thing, too, that, oh, you know, back when I first started writing about COVID, I was a man without a country. And because I studied, I talked with experts, local experts, I studied pathogens throughout history, and I realized the only way out of COVID was mass immunity. It's the only way that ever is for a virus like that. You know, people go, well, what about, uh...

Monkey, no, no, those aren't typical diseases. But any of these things that tend to be caught en masse, you know, there's no way you can stop it. And these idiot, and I've lost friends over this because I called them fucking idiots. Well, if we save one life, it's worth the economy. And I'm like, no, it's not. When you tank economies, you get Adolf Hitler. You know, when you tank economies, you get Huey Long.

You know, if we had a bad economy right now, Donald Trump would be dictator. I'm sorry. Americans would have gone that route because they're fucking cowards. I'm making friends left and right here. So, you know, oh, I agree. That's one of the.

The bad economy, it's fertilization for authoritarianism. I agree. History has shown that over and over. You already cited a few examples. People hadn't forgotten that the Democrats focused on the mitigations because it became a political hot potato. They hadn't forgotten that. So, oh, okay. And by the way, so not only did the mitigations fail to save a single life,

But now, and Sweden, go look at Sweden, the only country that really said, eh, we're going to go with it. They came out fine. People died. People died from pandemics. But that, those decisions, and then the corporate overlords jacking up prices. I wrote a column about this. I don't need bird's eye vegetables. I never have. Give me the generic brand, the store brand, that's likely made by bird's eye. You know, I don't.

You know, my shopping bill actually went down, but I'm going to go too far. But the Democrats couldn't write the fact that, OK, maybe that they knew that wasn't the best idea. And again, stake your claim to where you succeeded. And they just didn't do it. Now, should I do you want to add something, sir, or should I jump to how Trump cannot succeed?

That's going to be lessons for the Republicans, because trust me, they need lessons too, even though they won. Let's be clear. What I was going to say is to summarize it. You already did great opposition research on the Magadies. They had golden ammunition against them. So there's a long red sheet. I mean, bad stuff. I mean, great opposition research matters. Res messaging matters. And the only thing I'll be critical on...

Democrats should have talked about it and flipped the issue on their head regarding economy and immigration. They were more on that, sort of focused less on abortion. You know, abortion is important, don't get me wrong, but the trans was saying it was kind of like secondary issue at best. And that was my thing for the Democrats. I say abortion is important, but it's just, you're

You've got to pay attention to the numbers. You do, and not your ideology that doesn't work. Sorry about that. But yeah, the Democrats have to get back to speaking to their blue-collar base. Exactly. Bernie Sanders said it after the fact. He should have said that earlier. Yeah, he should, and he's been too progressive. You know, they should have, yeah, you know...

Well, they've become the party of progressive identity politics. Less so this time, but it wasn't less enough. And in retrospect, that's why they lost. And I'm the guy who wrote the book who said, I'm not the other guy's strategy. Never works. I mean, former state senator Bill Brady here in Illinois, I met him at a fundraiser. Pat Quinn was a badly damaged senator.

who got in after Rod Blagojevich, another Illinois governor who went to jail. Yeah, trivia question. Which state has had the most governors go to jail? Well, Illinois. And I said, Pat, you know, Bill, there's Pat Brady too, Bill. I said, I'm not the other guy. This is going to work. And he just smiled. And that's what they did. It allowed the Democrats to define him. And the set of commercials that won it is,

Bill Brady is too conservative for Illinois, and because he didn't put out his own message, it was co-opted. That's what happened here. You know, I mean, Trump's a loon. And, um...

In any event, I'm going to start repeating myself. Yeah, I mean, I get it. A lot of the Trump bad, Trump bad, Trump bad wasn't good enough. Kamala Harris did some ideas. Let me just defend for a second. You don't need to vote for her. She did have ideas. She debated some of them. I'll say so-and-so.

despite the chaos that was done in that debate, even though she did win, I did agree. I do agree with that. Even though I have Republican friends attacking me on that. I said, no, but she at least took to the question. Him, he deflects, derailed, even talking about the cats, you know, about the immigrants, cats and dogs thing. I was like, oh, ooh, I took, I did minus major points on Trump. And I was on my own analysis while they were debating. I said, ooh, that's a big minus. I did like triple minus mark on Trump saying that. I said, I don't even care if it ends up true. I said, you don't do that. Oh,

But it wasn't true, obviously. I said, just wait for the facts. But no, they don't believe in that either. The ideas of hysteria and just, you know. No, the way you would deal with Donald Trump is you go at him with humor. Yeah. He doesn't like it. But in any event, but the Democrats weren't capable of that. Should we leap to the Republican lessons they're about to learn?

Yeah, you know, I think we already touched on that. That's who the Republicans are. You don't have a sweeping mandate. True, more counties went red, but you're going to fuck up somewhere. So let's say Republicans are like that. They already are. And here's the thing, and that's just it. What I don't get is...

First, I understand they have 33 percent MAGA faithful. It's a cult. They're going to believe whatever he says and they're going to defend it regardless. Number one, you know, day one, I'm going to make gas and grocery prices go down. Well, he's already shifted to, well, it's kind of hard. You can't do it. First of all, no president can have an impact on petroleum prices for the long term.

Can they release oil from the strategic reserve? Yes. Okay, a month or two of lower prices. That's number one. Number two, you know, you can't, you know, Gerald Ford, you're probably too young, sir. But do you remember his wind buttons? Whip inflation now? That was his answer. You can't, especially when, you know, the supply chain issues, because a lot of countries, I mean, shockingly, we weren't the worst with COVID mitigations by a long shot.

So you have all these supply chain issues. Now Trump is putting tariffs on folks. Well, what about 70% of certain food comes from Mexico? How are you going to do that and keep grocery prices down? You have, you know, we're going to, we want American made products. Yeah, Hondas are made in America. And if you tax all the parts that come in, the price of those things is going to go up.

And agriculture need migrants. They need migrants. Most American products are built with foreign-made parts. So that's going to go up. Migrants. Who the fuck is going to pick your food? And this already happened. The last first time Trump was in, tomatoes were rotting in the Georgia fields because they tried to get white people to pick them. They wouldn't do it.

They tried to get black people to pick them. And D.L. Hughley goes, we've done that. The great comedian. Nah, we're not. You know, who are you going to get to pick your food? That's number one. The other hilarity is the Rust Belt states are saying, send the migrants to us. They don't have enough people to do the kind of jobs that migrants will do. And so Pennsylvania, Missouri, St. Louis, they were begging for them, you know.

Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois isn't as much of a Rust Belt state anymore. Michigan, Wisconsin all need these folks to fill these jobs. And if you kick them all out, what happens? Supply goes down. Prices go up.

Economics 101. Very basic. I know P.T. Barnum. No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. And I still get caught predicting Harris and Walls would win. And again, 90 percent of my predictions are correct. So but when I make a bad one, I make a bad one.

So, no, you can't. It can't happen. And it doesn't matter who's the president. You can't promise to increase tariffs, get rid of migrants at lower prices. It literally physically cannot be done. We do not live in a vacuum. You know, and, you know, already Trump has taken crap because Elon Musk. Well, I was about to say something you really can't say anymore.

So we won't go there because there is a bit too much violence. But this guy is an idiot. He's the luckiest man on the face of the earth. The strength he has is staying calm in the face of failure and being willing to say, well, either this next launch works or I'm broke. You know, there is a value for that kind of endurance. But now he, well, first of all, we've got the pictures of Donald Trump with long blonde hair in a

red evening gown, walking with a tuxedo and musk to the inaugurations already. And then, you know, some pundits have finally got it and they're making fun of Trump and he can't stand it. You want to drive a wedge between those two? Keep saying he's the first lady.

But Musk now is, you know, now he wants to bring in foreign people because we don't have enough trained people here, which number one is bullshit. Number two, they fucking train them. Nobody wants to be a coal miner for the rest of their goddamn life. You know, train them. Oh, God. You know, it's like when Republicans got rid of Head Start. That was the one thing. Well, I'm going to get off on something. Head Start Preschool.

that really help minority kids. So that's the other thing. So already he's taking crap from that. He's already gone back on his, before he's even inaugurated, he's gone back on his word to minors. So West Virginia's horked off at him. And, you know, I mean, it just, at his, to watch his MAGA apologizers, it's just hilarious. I mean, I'm surprised I haven't been kicked off of Facebook because my typical response is, are you really this fucking stupid?

You know, everybody's writing these columns and I will write one shortly. You know, it's like we well, now we have to get along with MAGA people. No, we don't. There are some friends. I'm sorry, Elias. You got me on a dime when I've taken a two week break for the first time in years. And apparently I have way too much energy. So where was I? Oh, crap.

We don't have to get along with the MAGA people. Oh, yeah, no. No. God damn ADHD. I don't have to get along with you. You're a fucking idiot. My fondest hope is you don't reproduce. Now, there are some, I have ideological friends. People can't hear you laughing. I get it. They've always voted Republican. They're going to vote Republican. And in Illinois, voting Republican is fairly meaningless.

You know, you vote for Trump in Illinois, it doesn't matter because the electoral guide did that. So I can forgive, you know, my good friend and attorney for voting for Trump. I could forgive some long-term people for voting for Trump. But, you know, I mean, the guy in one of the cul-de-sacs had put up, I'm voting for the womanizer felon. It's like, oh, my Lord, this is fine. I don't think he was with something else. And I'm like, oh, my God.

You know, thankfully, I have not run into him on the dog walk because I might say something. No, I don't have to get along with you. And I have no intention of doing so. In fact, and by the way, let's not get into the resistance. We're not in a goddamn dictatorship. We're not in Burma. We're not in... And by the way, we should do a podcast on my prediction of what was going to happen when the Russians are preoccupied in...

Key in. Come on, Jeff, Ukraine, because that's all coming to pass. You know, we don't live in Syria, but it's not the resistance. But if anyone thinks I'm going to back down from anything and not continue to challenge people. In fact, I I feel like I have free license to do it on steroids. And I was already pretty bad. So, no, no, no. I don't have to like you for being stupid.

I don't have to like you for supporting a woman. Can we go down the list? This guy's a fucking walking crime wave. I don't have to support. And by the way, anybody who supports Trump is not a Christian. End of story. Doesn't mean you can't vote for him. Doesn't mean you can't support him. But you're not a Christian. Clearly, there are some caveats there. So, you know, and now I don't know if the Democrats have the cojones to do it.

But I would be so obstructive that nothing happened. I would do exactly what they've done. You know, these days you need, what, 60% to get anywhere with anything in Congress? And I would just go, no, no, no. So I think they're going to learn that lesson a little bit. And if the Democrats are stupid enough not to do it, they deserve to go the way of the dodo bird. You know, the other thing, too, about this bullshit about migrants, you know, we have one of my –

Friends, good friends here is a Republican immigration attorney. And, you know, he tells stories and I've put this in columns about all these anti-immigration Republicans who come to him and go, by the way, you know, my cleaning lady has a brother.

or my contractor has a mother, can you get them in? It's hilarious. You know, if they know you, you're okay. But if they don't, you're evil. So I don't know how well, you know, and again, the only reason the population in this country isn't pulling a Japan is because of our Hispanic brothers and sisters. And that's why white folks are going to be in the minority. And they keep moving it up. I think now it's sometime in the 2030s.

You know, 2030 already. This has already been reported. I'm just like a little scientific now that Gen Alpha has already, you know, the white birth is. Yeah, it's a majority. It's officially majority. So that's already, you know, and and again, the Democrat we're getting kind of coming a little bit circular with the Democrats. My God, if you can't even get Hispanics to vote for you.

But again, let progressivism go. You know, do I want transgender folks to live a great life? Absolutely. You don't even need to tell me you're transgender. I don't want to know. Sometimes it's obvious, but I generally don't want to know. Just live your best life. You know what's funny about that? Because I've been in a podcast yesterday, and one of them tried to do a gotcha question. I predicted it was coming eventually, but I was well prepared for it. And there's some gamers and geeks podcast.

Long story short, he'll say, oh, but you sounded very anti-LGBTQ. I said, no, I was against him shoving the agenda. I'm not against him as people. There's a difference right there. If I'm against him as people, then I want him to be a spiritualist. So that's why I had a LGBTQ agenda.

psychologists on the show, so I got a chance to articulate that even more clearly. Because some people may think I'm anti-LGBTQ+. Plus, yeah, I get that. Because I was just critical of some of the bills and the political commentary on that. Now, I'm not against them as people. They can live their life. I really don't care. So if you're not shoving that thing down on other people's throats, that's my only criticism. I mean, you know, supporting a 6'6 swimmer to destroy women

Finally, the Olympic Committee had the balls, no pun intended, to say, you know, Leah Thomas, you're not competing. I mean, I used to swim with my six-foot-six friend, the minister that married me. I suck at swimming, but I could never swim. We would jokingly race a couple laps. I couldn't beat him. Long boats are faster.

But that's, you know, and that's what the Democrats have. All that bullshit identity politics that, you know, the purity test, you know, and it's hard to believe that the MAGA purity test somehow wasn't as bad as the Democratic purity test in 2020. One is overt, like Elizabeth Warren saying this stuff. And the other thing is, you got to consider.

what your decisions now will mean. And it's like all these people, you know, now they just shut up when I'm around or on Facebook. What I said, yeah, great. Let's kill the economy and see what happens. That's probably the singular thing that gave us Donald Trump. COVID has now decided two presidencies. It put Biden in office and it returned Trump. That's the reality. Beyond, you know, if you distill it down, you know, especially with the Democrats not

running the best campaign, that's really it. COVID tanked the economy, not as badly as other first world countries, but folks remembered it. So the Republicans too are going to learn that, you know, you and I, I believe, have discussed movement candidates. You know, how many movement candidates have there been in my lifetime when I'm 66? John F. Kennedy. And by the way, movement doesn't mean a landslide.

Richard Nixon got a landslide. He wasn't a... John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama. Here in Chicago, former mayor, late mayor, Harold Washington. You know, I mean, I usually come up with... But there are very few movement candidates. Donald Trump is a movement candidate. Somebody who can energize people based on his mere presence. And once he is gone, the Republican Party is going to

I think be out of office for a long, long, I'm sorry, out of the presidency for quite some time. And any state with any sort of balance is going to go the other way, too, particularly because Donald Trump isn't going to be able to keep any of his promises because they're impossible.

They are the conflict between those possibilities eliminates almost every one of them from coming to pass. So now, you know what the Democrats have sold their soul for. The Republicans have sold their soul for short term power. And the lesson they're going to learn is much like I helped. I almost said I pulled off. It wasn't just me.

Much like I helped pull off here in Kane County, if you put on any kind of reasonable campaign and prevent your candidates from making silly mistakes, Trumpism isn't all that attractive. So I mean, even look back to the 20, the 2022 midterms, it was very proof that Trumpism wasn't as attractive already with the cracks and all of that. So I think that's an indicator right there. If you want to be used recent history.

The red wave, the red wave. It was like a red little drip. Yeah. And it was more a Democratic loss than a Trump win. Trump was doing everything to lose that race. And his rallies were even petering out. But yeah, no. And movement candidates rarely succeed. Well, John F. Kennedy was murdered. Ronald Reagan died.

created this Republican spend till you drop. He did not do nearly what he said. Harold Washington had to face a stacked city council. You know, the council war is very famous. Anybody in Illinois knows what that is. And, you know, Donald Trump didn't, you know, his own vice president said Donald Trump didn't do shit in his first term.

J.D. Vance, you can't do shit. So, you know, Democrats need to message. They need to get back to their roots. Republicans, sell your soul in the short term. Watch what's going to happen. Donald Trump cannot succeed because Donald Trump set himself up not to succeed. It's got nothing to do, even if the Democrats are obstructive as the Republicans have been, and I hope they are.

It doesn't matter. You can't, you know, he can't keep those promises. They're mutually exclusive. I mean, just to counter that a little bit, based on a little bit of reporting, I think some Democrats are willing to work with this Dolch thing, which is interesting. I want to see how that pans out. Yeah, and...

Those things, but you know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about judicial nominations, military. Those are going to be obstructed much more for sure. Well, I think the Democrats have to prove a point or the Republicans are going to just keep doing it when they're in office. Yeah. I mean, they've got enough senators.

And some of them are already saying, well, these people are too crazy. So there's already some fraction right there. Well, that's the funny thing. At least Trump got rid of Matt Goetz, who's a fucking loon. Yeah. I mean, and some of these cabinet picks are hysterical. And they're all, oh, that's the other. Thank you for bringing that. I mean, it's like he's already screwing up. I nominate, you know, Trump.

I'm surprised he's not down to, I nominate Bill Burr for secretary. You know, comedians, you may as well do it because that's what you're doing. And I am a little fearful of what he might try to do against his opponents. Tony Hinchcliffe for secretary president. Something like that. He might as well do that. Yeah, exactly. That's a bad Puerto Rico joke that obviously didn't matter as much. No, that's just it. That surprised me. I really thought.

Aggravating Puerto Ricans was a bad idea. It still is. Yeah, I wouldn't do it. The only thing I really worry about, and not for me, I mean, I'm nothing to Donald Trump, but that his major detractors could have issues. But...

You know, much like the laws protected me from the FBI when they thought I was the Unabomber, of course, this is back in the late 70s and 80s, the law should protect those people too. You've already got the military saying, we're not going to blindly follow you, sir, so don't try it. You've got the Supreme Court saying, you will abide by our rules. You know, you've got Biden, some of these parties, especially some of the Illinois parties, I just don't get, but that's

Another story. You know, possibly granting people clemency ahead of time. But, yeah, that's the only thing that worries me about Trump, his vindictiveness. I mean, the guy's such a loser. It's hilarious. I mean, anybody that wants... You know, all these Republicans... By the way, it's hilarious. The other thing is to do, you know, when I go after them in print, just watch them lose their shit. And I have...

sources deep inside the party and they're like, you are so in their heads, you know, but in any event, it wasn't, like I said, I, I, I don't think I'm the panacea. I've written the book. I'm a reasonable campaign manager. Um,

Which we need a lot more of, let's just say that. We need a lot more reason because that's dying, I hate to say it. Craziness, mentally ill candidates, and people with power, that's on the rise, which is very alarming. I don't care if it's even left or right, it's just on the rise. But again, to plug myself briefly because we are running out of time. At this point, give me numbers, I can determine if an election is winnable, and if it's winnable,

and you listen to me, you'll win. So again, if you go to winalocalelection.com, uh-oh, Jesus Christ, I don't know my own websites, winalocalelection.com or forwardcom.me, you can reach out to me.

And I can – now having done this since 2016, my track record is an absurd 70%, partly because I picked my candidates. But I didn't do that this time. I worked for the Democrats in general. I'd be happy to talk to you and help you out. Yeah, again, win a local election. Yes, of every –

It's a very valuable book. I read it myself. It is very up to date. And it updates it if necessary. I will be doing that shortly. So you want to win a local election. It's available on Amazon. You got to look a little hard for the e-book, but you want something in color because it matters for signage. It matters for pictures.

But if anybody wants, you know, any... I will share that link, that link that gives you directly to the colored book. And you have the other website. I will deal with that. God, I love coming on this show, Elias. And I don't know if it's the fact that, you know... By the way, I woke up after New Year's and I weighed... New Year's morning, I weighed 194 pounds. So we're into Operation Less Jeff.

I really need to get back down to 180. So drinking is way down for all the obvious reasons, but I don't know. Maybe it's resting for two weeks. Maybe it's not drinking as much, but I certainly, you certainly got the full Monty of Jeff Ward this morning. And even I'm a little surprised, but thanks to you and other people, I've gotten a lot better at doing these things and doing the radio show for years. But I love coming on here because I know I can,

Be me. And for some odd reason, I just don't generate the hate mail anymore. I think people feel like either A, I'm hopeless, B, I'm pointless, or C, yeah, this guy fights back. I only like wimps that give in. So, but yeah, I mean, it's not that hard to set the groundwork. It's hard to win an election, but it's not that hard to set the candidate up to have a better chance to win. It's exactly sports betting.

I don't take the odds they give me. I shift the odds to my favor within certain bounds of mathematical and financial reason. So that's the thing. But oof, well, this was fun and we're at our hour. Yep.

So, my lovely listeners, I'm sure you'll enjoy it. I'm not going to ask you if you did. Yeah, exactly. Come on. These are insightful as well. Come on. We don't get a lot of that. The MAGA is just entertaining but without any insightfulness. No. It's the same thing with progressives and all their crap. Liberals. Liberals are different. I'm a liberal.

I'm just going to leave myself as a centrist just for simplicity's sake. No, you're better off that way. Yeah, instead of being independent. Centrists these days kind of get pushed into the liberal camp because the MAGA folks are so nuts.

Oh, yeah. No, I got driven away. I gave them a shot. I gave them a fair shot. So I don't feel guilty about it. I gave them a fair shot, but they shot all the hands I tried to offer them, and I pulled it right back just in time before I got bitten. Freemasons are devil worshippers? Yeah. I can't write...

It's hard to be funny anymore. How do I become funnier than reality? I understand why South Park was in great pain because they do satirical humor and it ruined that for them. What do you do? All right, shut up. All right, so whenever you listen, whenever you went through this whole audio, entertainment, video thing,

Onslaught, I'm just gonna say it like that. You have a blessed day, afternoon, or night. Yeah.