Hogg Wild: The Youth Vote & DNC Shake-Up

David B. Wheeler: 00:00:21

Welcome back folks to Muck U where we cut through the noise and dig into the truth. No sugar coating, no spin, just the raw, unfiltered conversations that matter.

I'm David Wheeler and as always, I'm joined by my co host and good friend, the one and only Colonel Mo Davis, who's going to introduce us to our guest.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:00:39

Well, thanks good to be with you again and thanks everybody for joining in. And you know, we're continuing with a long streak of, of really interesting guests and we're honored today to have David Hog on.

I mean, I was, I was, I guess I'd kind of lost track of time.

spotlight back in February of: 2018

Most recently, you know, if you're, if you're paying attention to the news, you know that last month he was elected vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, which I'm guessing at the age of 24 is probably the youngest person to hold that job. But, but in between he's written a, he and his sister written a best selling book. He's graduated from Harvard, which we have something in common.

I'm a graduate of Appalachian State University and many people say that Harvard is the Appalachian state of New England. So wow, we, we have that in common. But hey, David, it's a real pleasure to have you on today. Thank you for taking time to do this.

David Hogg: 00:01:44

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:01:45

Well, listen, let's talk about the, the new role you're taking on is a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. You and Ken Martin are stepping into, to a pretty big role.

I mean, you know, we just got, you know, we've lost control of the Supreme Court, of the Congress, of the White House. Polling shows that 27% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party. So why'd you take on such an easy job?

David Hogg: 00:02:13

You know, I'm a big believer in leading by example. And I think one of the most important things that we can do in our country and in our party and in life is not just talk about what's wrong.

It's to talk about what we're going to do differently and how we're going to be part of the solution. And what happened is I, you know, we saw one of the largest shifts to the right of 18 to 29 year olds in American history this past cycle.

And when I was at a DNC meeting as a member of the public, just watching, and they said one of the main reasons why we lost was because of younger voters, specifically people under the age of 29. I looked around the room and I didn't see anybody under the age of 40 besides the DNC staff.

So I saw an opportunity for myself to be part of the change that I wanted to see and not just complain online, not just say I think we're doing things wrong, but to be part of the solution, hopefully to win back our young people and just deliver competent and effective leaders that can help bring our country out of this moment, that can deliver on lowering the cost of living for people, lowering the cost of housing, lowering the cost of health care and lowering the cost of education as well. And yeah, to be clear, too, in this role, there are multiple vice chairs. Thankfully, I'm not taking this on alone.

In this role, there are several others that are also vice chairs.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:03:26

Well, you mentioned about young people and getting engaged. I don't know if you saw. There was a Ezra Klein at a piece in the New York Times on Tuesday is an interview with Democratic pollster David Shore.

's political environment from: 2016

He said that in the age group 26 and under, that only women of color in that group voted for Kamala Harris and that, you know, white women and men, both white men and men of color, all voted for Trump. So by about 23 percentage points. So how do we close that gap? How do we get young people back on the progressive side?

David Hogg: 00:04:17

I mean, one, I think it's speaking to the reality of what a lot of them are facing.

I think more than anything, part of the when I was running for this role of vice chair and people asked me why we lost or my thoughts on why we lost, I said, look, voters told us two things this election. They told us that prices were too high and Joe Biden was too old. And with the power of $2 billion behind us, we said, no, he's not.

And then, yes, he is. And then we said, no, they aren't. And when you tell voters not to believe their eyes or their wallets, you're going to lose them.

And I think the most important thing that our party can do going forward is one, acknowledge reality.

When prices are too high, just talk about how they are too high, but tell people what we're doing about it right and that goes for any multitude of other issues.

And with that too, I think we got to do a lot more work to acknowledge the work that our party needs to do in our blue states to govern better, specifically around the costs of living. Increasingly, you know, I ended up in, I ended up in Parkland in the first place because my family couldn't afford to live there anymore.

My father was diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's disease and he was facing an early medical retirement.

And the reality was, with the cost of living in California, specifically that of housing, that my family knew that we were most likely not going to be able to continue to pay our mortgage if we remained in California. So we moved to Parkland where we were able to have a much lower cost of living.

that's the reality we had in: 2014

And if our, we have to do a lot more work to get better at building housing and addressing the cost of living, especially in our blue states that in many ways, in my opinion, have become the victim of their own success. They've had massive economic growth in places like California and Massachusetts.

In Illinois, however, they have not done, we've not done effective work as a party to make sure that we, we're keeping costs low for people so that they can afford to continue to live there in the first place.

And I think the way that we're going to win back our young people, the way we're going to win back our young people is talking about the issues that matter them. And more than anything, far more than that, showing them what we're actually doing to deliver on that.

How we're making their communities more, more walkable, how we're making their communities safer, um, and how we're making life more affordable.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:06:23

Yeah, well, you know, it to me is frustrating. The, you know, what seeming kind of ineptitude in messaging on the Democratic side.

I mean, I thought, you know, Joe Biden wasn't perfect, but considering, you know, the economy he inherited, you know, in the post, Covid, coming out of COVID and compared to the rest of the world, economically, America was in better shape than most any other country around the world. But we did a horrible job of communicating that to the public and particularly young people. One of the things I note. Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.

David Hogg: 00:06:54

No, no, I, I, I understand what you're saying there, but I, I do want to push back a little bit in that I think the way that we were looking at inflation, election cycle was wrong in that we did end up lowering the cost of a lot of things, like, you know, consumer goods, for example, even though they were higher for a time.

But the reality is the things that everybody has to buy, and this includes before COVID but it was especially exacerbated since the cost of education, the cost of health care, housing, and so much more has gotten astronomically more expensive than it was decades ago. And it got especially bad with rents during COVID And I think that was part of the biggest disconnect that we had as a party.

The places that we saw, some of the places that we saw shift the most to the right correlated with the largest rises in rents that we had.

And I think that's a product of our consultant class who often own their homes or have a very low interest rate mortgage that are inherently not going to feel that same pressure that a lot of our young people are that.

Speaker E: 00:07:52

Are experiencing their rents going up, you.

David Hogg: 00:07:53

Know, 20 or 30%.

And unfortunately, too, even if we are doing better at managing inflation than other countries, we don't care about that because we already assume that we're going to be on top and that we're going to be the best because we're America.

Speaker E: 00:08:05

Right?

David Hogg: 00:08:07

And I think what we really had to do a better job of, in my opinion, was acknowledging that rents have gotten higher. And we did towards the end of the campaign, more, but it was way too late by that point.

And talking about what we were doing to lower those costs and crack down on corporate landlords and others, how do.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:08:23

We, you know, the data showed that voters that are disengaged, that aren't really paying attention, are more likely to go further to the right. And another stat showed that about 4 out of 10 folks under the age of 30 get their news. Their primary news source is TikTok.

So how do we do a better job of penetrating through the bubble and being able to communicate with, you know, young folks under 30 who are getting their news on TikTok and the disengaged voters out there who aren't paying that close of attention to politics.

David Hogg: 00:08:53

I think we got to understand one, that Donald Trump treats politics like it's a WrestleMania, and we treat it like it's C Span. We understand that.

Speaker E: 00:09:01

We, it seems like we have forgotten that that politics is spectacle, it is theater.

And we also, because of our consultant class that makes so much money off of digital ads, that make so much money off of key, you know, cable and TV and broadcast news, they have 20 years of relationships that actively incentivize them, disincentivize them from innovating and reaching places where younger voters are currently. Because that may threaten their business model. It may threaten how they're going to get their fourth house on Martha's Vineyard. Right.

And I think what we need to do in the party is we need our politician. We need a hell of a lot more young people in our party that know how to communicate effectively on social media.

And for the older people in the party, too, we need to give them the training to understand how to make a TikTok, and not in like a really cringy way, but in a way where they're saying, hey, you know, my name's Kirk Watson, for example. I'm the mayor of Austin, Texas, a good friend of mine. I like him a lot. And this is what we've done on housing.

This is how we've lowered our rents in our city by 20% over the past year, even as rents have skyrocketed elsewhere in our state. It's because Democrats took charge.

They effectively governed and lowered the price of housing, lowered the price of rent in our city even as it continued to grow.

What it looks like is people like New York City Councilman Shi Aussie, who at the age of, I think is 26, was able to use TikTok to talk about something very unpopular, which are broker fees in New York City, tell people how to show up at a New York City Council meeting to talk about and advocate for abolishing broker fees, and got a meeting that typically had, I think it was, you know, maybe a couple dozen people that were all self interested in keeping broker fees. Got several hundred people in a line around the block to show up to demand that broker fees be ended and abolished.

And told that story as it was happening, as he was working on building the coalition to do that, and then showed people and claimed victory about how they actually did end up putting the broker fees onto the landlord rather than the tenant.

What I think it looks like is people like Jeff Jackson in North Carolina, where I think has done an excellent job of speaking direct to camera and telling people what is going on and what he is doing.

I think it also looks like people like Rob Stant, right, in Iowa, talking about how they're fighting corruption, you know, really broad things that everybody, of every demographic, I would argue every party agrees with. You know, more efficiency, less corruption, and doing that on social media and showing people how to get involved there. Because right now we're just.

We're not doing that nearly enough.

David B. Wheeler: 00:11:37

Well, that's a good segue to one of the bees in my bonnet, David, which is the consultant class. And I always use the example of the Marjorie Taylor Greene race Atlanta.

million and it spent in: 2000

How do we disintermediate some of this consultant class and make sure that candidates know, you know what, if you're going to go with this consultant who clearly has a track record of simply pocketing donor money and not winning races, you know, candidate X or candidate Y, you know, you're not going to get Democratic support. As a matter of fact, we're going to shun you.

Speaker E: 00:12:30

Yeah. I think the first and for the first and most important thing in my opinion is our party.

In my view, we've got to put more guidance out publicly for campaigns at the local, state and federal level to their managers and candidates that says here are the standard rates that people charge like, here's the range of like, plus or minus 5% of like what the, what the median person charges for TV ads, digital ads, their commissions, their rates and their fee structure and anything that is beyond this should be highly suspect.

And you can call this number at, you know, ex Democratic organization, whichever, you know, level they're running for, and ask is this a fair rate or am I getting ripped off instead of just being told by the self interested consultant, oh yeah, you know, me charging 40% for this is a really good rate because then it's frankly, I think for a lot of managers and other people it's embarrassing to be, to have to confront the fact that they've been misled, they've been manipulated and that, that they've been lied to.

And to them, what happens a lot of the time I think is they're like, well, we're already bringing in a lot of money anyways and I know that they might be high, charging a fee that's too high, but look, we're still bringing in this money.

I think we need to have way better standards across our party of showing people what the standard rates are to charge for these different products and class and these different products in consulting. Because right now that just does not exist nearly enough from what I've seen or really at all.

I also think that we got to speak publicly when we've been wronged by a consultant.

People love to say, oh, you know, these consultants are such a problem and then like they don't, but they never name names and because they're afraid. But this is a collective action problem. People are going to have to speak out and say this person is a problem.

They ripped off this person, they threatened this person in this race that if they didn't hire them that they would get somebody in the primary. Which is something that is actually happened to one of the candidates that we've supported before for leaders we deserve.

And that's a big part of what we do is helping our candidates one, not get ripped off by consultants and two, making sure we're protecting them from predatory consultants that do things like that. But we're have to start naming names publicly if we ever really want to start this, if we ever want to make this change.

I even have heard stories of members of Congress that have had to keep people on their payroll simply because they're worried that that person's going to get somebody else in their primary. That's just, that's just. How is that not extortion? That's bullshit that, that's fucking. Sorry. It's bullshit that that's happening.

And our party has to stand up and say something about it. Because the reason we're losing here is not because we can't raise the goddamn money right being spent properly.

And I care because organizations like leaders, we deserve, we're doing the good work. We're raising millions of dollars from small dollar donors, people who give on average less than, you know, $50 to our organization.

And it's what enables us to give money to candidates and say here you go ex candidate, we're going to support you.

We know that you agree that you're not taking corporate money that you're going to have that you're going to tell lobbyists to go fuck themselves basically when they try to corrupt you because you're on one of their committees that they have a self interest in. And that is, that is the power of what we have here.

But we, I'm, I'm always here trying to make sure that we're protecting are small dollar donors and we're not abusing.

David B. Wheeler: 00:15:40

Yeah, absolutely, David. I'm so glad to hear that. And this obviously is a problem that you inherit, you've inherited at the dnc. I know you haven't been part of this culture.

I didn't want to make that, let that hang there.

Speaker E: 00:15:52

It would be a lot wealthier.

David B. Wheeler: 00:15:54

Yeah, yeah, you and me both.

But you know the other thing that I think I like this because the DNC needs to protect its brand and, and you guys are a brand and you need to be a lot more assertive in my estimate, humble opinion. And, and I think you ought to go one step further. I think you ought to have a reporting service where we, I've looked into this.

Sanction these consultants or not.

We, we list how much money that they were in control of and then we list their win and lose rate and then we list their per vote cost because again, you know, in Georgia that race was not close.

Everybody knew it wasn't going to be close and they, they could have pulled some of that money and spent it elsewhere in Georgia, frankly, and had a better effect. But I'm so glad to hear that you're on this and you understand that there's a problem because you're right, we've got. I'm sorry, Go ahead, David.

Speaker E: 00:16:50

When it comes to the reporting system, that is something that I have talked about actively and have been in discussions about the main challenge.

There's a number of legal challenges that come with it, unfortunately, as you can imagine, because it's people's businesses and there's challenges around it.

But I'm still, I'm still looking into figuring out how we can, how we can create something that, that is a, a kind of like a report card system ideally. But it's.

David B. Wheeler: 00:17:15

Well, if you guys, if you guys don't, if you guys don't, we, maybe we will here at American Muckrakers because it's, it's really a systematic problem. And, and we're not just talking hypothetically here.

You know, we, we have a very small pack and for around 125 grand, we helped get rid of Madison Cawthorn.

ting rid of him in, you know,: 2020

And you know, we got her down to 546 votes.

All the while, you know, you're spending millions upon millions in other races, Georgia included, that they were never going to be one and everybody knew it. And, and I actually reached out to the consultant that was involved and he blocked me on everything, on all the socials and everything else.

And I just wanted to have a civil discussion. But so glad to hear your focus on that. I think that's really important because we've got great candidates. We can raise the money.

It's just the money's being missed.

Speaker E: 00:18:23

I mean, maybe what you could do, maybe what you could do is you could have a reporting service where people are to come to you and not like anonymously or like without it coming back to them and report predatory consultants and say specifically what they did. So you like to do a campaign or something like that, and you guys, you know, just rake them over the.

David B. Wheeler: 00:18:41

Coal bitch and moan. Does your. David, is that Democrats aren't doing enough to oppose Trump?

Now, you could disagree with that or agree with it, but in your estimation, what are the Democrats doing? Right. And what should our listeners be doing more?

Speaker E: 00:18:57

You know, I think what I am glad to see happening is there's a lot of people going and doing town halls around the country, like Tim Walls, for example. Our chair, Ken Martin is also doing town halls with the DNC around the country.

What I wish we were able to do more of in a more coordinated fashion is like, I would really love to see like a day every, I don't know, every quarter maybe, where everybody tries to hold a town hall with their member of Congress, Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter, all of them.

And for the Republicans that don't show up, just get an empty chair and their opponent and just have the town hall without them and make them look awful in the press.

And I think part of what we got to do, too, is make sure that we're really blowing some of these races that we, that are going on right now, specifically in places like Wisconsin that are so important for the presidential out of the water. Right.

This Wisconsin Supreme Court race that is going on for Judge Susan Crawford, that's on April 1, could easily decide a presidential election because of, you know, whether or not the Supreme Court there upholds a voter or strikes down a voter suppression law. It also could determine whether or not they restrict abortion in Wisconsin and so much more.

And I know that's really challenging because that, that doesn't necessarily directly address Donald Trump.

David Hogg: 00:20:12

But I think in terms of what people can do is, look, this party is not going to get better on its own. It doesn't get better in a vacuum.

And what really, what really, what I want to see a lot more of, what I think we need a lot more of is, is, is people who step up in these moments and say, like, all right, like, I'm going to work and figure out how I can improve my, my local Democratic Party. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to get involved in my state party. And it's, you know, I don't, I didn't run for vice chair because this.

Speaker E: 00:20:40

Is a fun job by any means. In fact, it's not even a job.

David Hogg: 00:20:43

I'm not paid for. It's because it's important.

I know that in order for us to advance gun control, for us to, to win back young voters, we have to build a stronger Democratic Party. But I can't do that on my own.

We have to come together right now in this moment as a country, repel Donald Trump and build the strongest Democratic Party we have ever seen. And what is not going to accomplish that is just, is just us doing step one of that, which is talking about what is wrong.

It is going to be doing step two and three of that, which is one, getting involved to be part of the solution and two, being the solution if, if you're not able to make it, you know, with the people that are currently there. So get involved in your local party. I know it's not, it may not be. Sometimes they may not be as active for whatever reason.

Sometimes they, they may not be super well organized. These are led by volunteers as well, and volunteers can be very well organized, but they also have lives, of course, get involved.

This is not, this issue is not going to fix itself. We have to fix this ourselves. And I know that's not an incredibly satisfying answer, but that is the reality.

And then the other thing is, you know, help me find some younger people that would be great to run for Congress, for city council, for state legislature that my organization leaders, we deserve, can support to help bring some fresh blood into the Democratic Party. Because we need an intergenerational coalition.

en Z member of Congress since: 2022

And we need a hell of a lot more people like him in Congress and in our state legislatures and in our city councils.

There are hundreds, there are maybe there are thousands and thousands, thousands of seats that people can run for that we need Democrats to run for that. Our party needs to build the power in. And many of them were young. You know, people have never run before because they are very Republican.

And I think we need to contest every single race that we can, even if we know it's going to be an uphill battle.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:22:41

estern North Carolina back in: 2020

And I was fortunate that we were able to show that it was going to be a close race and I got the DCCC to help out. But some of my Democratic colleagues that were running in districts that, you know, they knew they, you know, they weren't going to win.

You know, they couldn't get anybody at the DCCC to answer the telephone. So, you know, the party wants somebody to run for every, every office.

But there seems like there ought to be some minimum level of support that comes along with that rather than just throwing people out there on their own and expecting them to, you know, shoulder the entire burden.

David Hogg: 00:23:18

Yeah, I think part of the challenge is that there also is such limited resources, too, and so, so much limited staffing that we have to be, especially because of the gerrymandering that has happened and the conservative bias that our state governments have that, you know, the Senate has to. In our government in general, there's really limited resources to be able to, to work together on prioritizing which races are worked on.

But I agree with you.

I think there should be a lot more support specifically, even if it's not, you know, a crazy, like, I, obviously, I don't, I think it's really important than the races that are the most competitive that we're really prioritizing our resources there to get those candidates across the finish line, obviously.

But I do agree with you that there's, there's probably a higher base level of support that the party as a whole can provide for a lot of these, these races that are uncontested, typically to make sure that people know that we see them, we care about them and that we're, we're here with them and that they are valued because even if they aren't able to win their race, if they're able to organize their community more and help turn people out that vote up ballot for statewide elections in places like North Carolina or Georgia, that's still really important and meaningful. Yeah, but I totally agree with you.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:24:30

Yeah, you mentioned gerrymandering. Certainly North Carolina is a prime example of that. You know, we really are a purple state.

You know, we've the last three elections, you know, the state has voted for, for Trump by a couple of points. But we've also elected Democratic governors on the same ticket. So we truly are a purple state.

Yet our legislature, you know, in the last Congress we had seven Republicans and seven Democrats, which reflected the true nature of North Carolina. Then the Republican legislature gerrymandered it.

And so now it's 10 and 4, you know, but for that gerrymandering, Congress would be just about even rather than the Republicans having a slight majority. But, you know, one of the folks that got gerrymandered out was Wiley Nicholl.

He was a Democrat representing one of the districts in the eastern part of North Carolina.

But we had him on recently because, you know, he just left Congress in the early part of January and he said one of the things he tried to push that didn't seem to get a lot of traction was having like a shadow government.

So, for example, like if Pete headseth, the Secretary of Defense makes some outrageous comment, have someone like Pete Buttigieg that could respond from the Democratic side.

Because it seems like one of the frustrations, you know, that we hear is that the Republicans are doing these outrageous things and people are looking for a Democratic response to it.

So I thought his idea had some merit to it to have designated, you know, folks that had expertise in a particular area that when the other side says something stupid, you know, we can call them on it.

David Hogg: 00:26:02

Yeah, I think it's a great idea. I, look, I've, I've called up different.

Speaker E: 00:26:05

Members of Congress and suggested this exact same idea because I think it's brilliant.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:26:08

Yeah, I think folks just want to hear a sensible answer that the Democrats, you know, do have a coherent plan and some of this outrageous, you know, bullshit that the Republicans are throwing out there that there is a better solution.

Hey, one of the things I want to ask you about is, you know, immigrants make up about 10% of the elect and Biden, you know, won by 21, the immigrant vote by 27%. But then Trump won it this time by about a point. What do we do to stem that?

I mean, just to me it seems illogical if you're an immigrant that you're supporting someone who, you know, it's made it clear from day one he's going to deport folks that don't look like him. How do we do a better job of connecting with those immigrant communities?

David Hogg: 00:26:51

I mean, I think one, it's, it's talking about the issues that all communities that, that affect all communities or at least 99% of communities, which is, which.

Speaker E: 00:26:58

Is that they are suffering right now.

David Hogg: 00:27:00

With the cost of living and especially poor, low income and, you know, predominantly immigrant communities we know are not necessarily as affluent as many other, you know.

Speaker E: 00:27:10

Second or third generation communities.

David Hogg: 00:27:12

And when prices skyrocket and they feel like the system is not working for them, they're going to vote for somebody who they believe is going to help blow up the system. Now, do I think that Trump's trying to blow up the system for everyday people in the right way? Absolutely not.

I think he's trying to blow it up so that he's able to deregulate industry and able to consolidate power around a corporate oligarchic 1% by cutting their taxes.

But I think this speaks to the necessity of our party needing to talk about the real need for reform within our government, not endlessly defending our institutions, but talking in a real way about how, yes, they are not perfect.

Here's our plan to make them better, and not just endlessly saying, like, oh, these are, or implying that these are perfect or that there isn't anything that needs to be changed. When people are really furious at this moment and they feel like increasingly the American dream is. Is.

Is only a dream and it's not going to be possible. Possible for them, no matter how hard they work.

I also think that, one, we have to understand that the immigrant community is not a monolith, obviously.

And while some recent immigrants to this country are understandably pro immigration, there are very, very many that are actually not pro immigration that have. Where there is a kind of mentality that they, once they've walked through the door, they don't want anybody else coming in after them.

And I think that's a broader philosophical conversation that has to be had in our country about who we are and what our identity is. But I also think it speaks to our broken immigration system right now and how many people.

Nobody likes to feel like they're getting cut in line at all. Right. And we have to fix our immigration system so that it is more fair so that people can come here legally and don't have to do so. Ily Right.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:28:54

Yeah, that's, you know, that's one of the areas where I think we. We really missed an opportunity.

You know, we had a bipartisan bill that was set to be passed to try to, you know, the most comprehensive immigration bill in a generation, and Donald Trump killed it just to use it as a political talking point. And it just seems like we didn't do a very good job of exploiting that. The impediment to trying to address the immigrant problem was Donald Trump.

David Hogg: 00:29:20

Yeah.

I mean, honestly, personally, I think the bigger issue is that we didn't talk about enough of what we were doing to address the crisis by addressing it at the source in a lot of Central American countries that people were coming from because of violence, because of government destabilization and Other things.

And that, that I think is symbolic of a bigger problem that the administration had, which is that, you know, President Biden was an incredible commander in chief and in regards to how much he was able to do in domestic policy, especially around guns, unfortunately, he was not a communicator in chief. And in politics, if you were able to get a lot of shit done, but people do not know that that was because of what you did.

It doesn't matter, because appearance is reality. Yeah.

We really failed to talk about what we were doing and the dramatic decline that we had in the number of people applying for asylum, the number of people attempting to illegally immigrate to our country because of the work the administration did to address it in. At the source rather than at the border.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:30:16

And that's. And that's one of the areas where this, you know, eliminating USAID is going to bite us in the ass because it's.

We were helping people to make life better in their. Where they were, and they didn't feel the need to, you know, try to flee to a safer environment. And cutting that off is. Is not in our interest.

David Hogg: 00:30:34

Well, yeah, and it's actually very much in. In China's interest. I mean, there was a.

Immediately after we cut off, I think it was like a $500 million grant or something like that to to Nepal for their electric grid and some infrastructure. I think it was. Within 24 hours, China stepped up and said, hey, we'll fund this and you just give us your airport that we want to build. Right.

People are stepping into that role, and it's not for a good reason.

Speaker E: 00:30:57

Yeah.

David Hogg: 00:30:58

And it's. You know, I think part of the difficulty here is, is that I don't, I don't. I. I don't think us trying to go. Trying to think of how to say this.

I think that there has to be an acknowledgment that we are a country of immigrants. Right. And that we're gonna. We want people to come here illegally. We don't. We don't want people having to come here illegally in the first place.

Speaker E: 00:31:17

Right.

David Hogg: 00:31:17

But the reality is the people.

The people are walking thousands of miles to come to our country, not because they necessarily are just like, oh, you know what I want to do is like, I just want to come here. It's. It's because they're terrified for their lives most time.

Speaker E: 00:31:29

Right.

David Hogg: 00:31:29

Like, they're fearing for their lives and they're trying to come. Nobody leaves their home country to go to a country that they don't even.

Speaker E: 00:31:33

Speak the language of a lot of.

David Hogg: 00:31:35

The time on a whim, it's because they don't have any other choice. And our nation has a long history of bringing in people like that that have made. Made a. That.

That has made us who we are as a country, that has made us an incredibly powerful and diverse country that finds our strength in that diversity. And as that is happening throughout our history, there are a lot of. There's a lot of pushback and xenophobia that happens and other things like that.

And I think that we just have what we are doing to build a more fair immigration system where people can come here legally and offering refuge for people that truly have nowhere else to go and are terrified for their lives. Because I know when our country gives people like that a chance, they're incredibly.

They're incredibly powerful Americans and members of our society that contribute so much to our country.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:32:23

Right. You know, in recent weeks, we've had, like, Adam Kinzinger and Rick Wilson and David Jolly on.

And one of the things we've talked about is, you know, it seems like, you know, the Republicans are ruthless. You know, they're totally committed to winning it, you know, at any cost.

You know, like here in North Carolina, we've seen them break the law to do it, but it seems like, you know, they're ruthless.

And on the other side, Democrats want to be polite and follow the rules, and, you know, if we don't win, you know, your policy positions don't matter because you don't have the ability to implement them.

So it seems like, you know, kind of a common refrain has been that Democrats have to have more backbone and a more forceful response than we've had in the past. I mean, the analogy I've used, like, when I was running is, you know, if the Republicans come to the.

To a knife fight with the machete and we show up with a quinoa salad, how can we. We got to do a better job of being more aggressive and having a stronger message and fighting harder. So do you see us doing that.

Speaker E: 00:33:17

One way or another? Yeah. Either.

Either things stay the same, and there's a dramatic change in our leadership throughout the party at every level, or our leaders get their act together, and we start fighting a hell of a lot harder.

I think part of what we have to do, though, is that we got to bring in a new generation of young people that are fired up and ready to take on this challenge and take on Donald Trump.

And that's exactly why I do this work with leaders we deserve to help elect Young Democrats to state legislatures in Congress all around the country who are fighters that are not going to be just when our democracy is under attack, not just be like, well, you know, this is the parliamentary procedure.

These are these, you know, all this stuff, all these, all this academic, you know, this whole academic approach when we're in a fight for our lives here as a country, a fight for our democracy.

And when I, when I think about this, when you ask people in a focus group if the Democratic Party was an animal, you know what the most common answer is?

Col. Moe Davis: 00:34:08

No turtle.

Speaker E: 00:34:09

You know, for Republicans, it's a lion or a shark.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:34:12

Yeah, that's.

Speaker E: 00:34:13

And regardless of whether or not you agree with Republicans, the, there is an appeal of having somebody who fights like hell for you. And right now people just do not feel like we fight like hell for them.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:34:24

Yep.

Speaker E: 00:34:24

And we've got to change that.

That's part of why I stepped up in this role is because I'm, I'm used to fighting like hell for gun control and I'm going to continue doing that, but I'm going to fight like hell for all the other issues that drive gun violence that the Democratic Party platform is built on addressing. Right. Poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity more than anything for so many.

David B. Wheeler: 00:34:45

So David, you, you talked, you've alluded to a couple leaders across the country for, for our listeners who are looking for somebody to back, somebody to follow and support can.

And again, this is not the DNC endorsing anybody or anything, but from your perspective, who are a couple of the superstars that we ought to keep an eye on?

Speaker E: 00:35:07

I think Congressman Maxwell Frost for sure, he needs our support as the only Gen Z member of Congress and somebody who doesn't come from a super wealthy family or anything like that. And then I also think that it's honestly Susan Crawford like we got to win that race. Jeff Jackson's great too, obviously.

But if anybody is going to donate to something other than the dnc, obviously I would strongly urge you to consider making a donation to Susan Crawford's race.

David B. Wheeler: 00:35:30

True, that's true. That's an extremely important race.

So folks, do us a favor and, and find her on the Internet and make a donation today and help her with that campaign. So David, what, what gets you up in the morning and what, what motivates you to, to help building this party and helping elect Democrats?

Speaker E: 00:35:50

I think it's the fact that we have delivered, even though we've been terrible at advertising, what we've done, we've done a lot of really good work even Though it's not perfect by any means. And just take guns, for example. We, under Biden's presidency, we passed the first federal gun law in 30 years.

And we also created the Office of Gun Violence Prevention at the White House. That office was tasked with enforcing our gun laws, in coordinating the federal government's response to gun violence.

And it was tasked with overseeing the allocation of billions of dollars into programs aimed at combating gun violence and funding mental health resources in our school.

And because of that, they were able to hire thousands and thousands of school guidance counselors and mental health counselors because of the law that we passed after Uvalde.

to the point that over: 1200

David Hogg: 00:36:47

And as a result of all these.

Speaker E: 00:36:48

, in the past two years, from: 2023

David Hogg: 00:36:57

That is nowhere near enough.

Speaker E: 00:36:58

But those two years mark the largest one year reductions in gun homicides in American history. That is remarkable.

David Hogg: 00:37:05

Part of the challenge that we have.

Speaker E: 00:37:06

Though, as Democrats is a lot of the policies that we're fighting for, we're not going to get rewarded for because you're not going to hear about the shooting that doesn't happen.

You're not going to hear about the person that doesn't die in a hurricane that doesn't happen because of the Inflation Reduction act and how much work that did to reduce the effects of climate change and subsidize, you know, renewables, for example. But ultimately, I know that we're, we are improving people's lives.

So many of the things that people are most worried about being under attack are the product of incredible Democratic achievements. Right from Social Security to Medicaid and Medicare.

Our party, time and time throughout our history has delivered to improve the social safety net of the American people and saved and improved millions of lives. Tens of millions of lives. Hundreds, frankly, hundreds of millions of lives because of that work.

And I know that we have so much potential if we can just change our priorities slightly to help focus on building more housing, building more transit, and addressing a lot of the issues that our friends in our rural communities are also facing, to stand up for the 99% and not, and not let Trump continue to get away with his tax cuts for billionaires, with his deregulation for all these corrupt industries. And other things like that.

We just have to regain the trust of the American people by going back to our values and showing how we're delivering on the issues that matter to them.

David B. Wheeler: 00:38:28

I think you're, I think you're right. I think it's kind of back to basics for the Democratic Party, in my opinion.

And, you know, we're just going to have to ride out Trump for a while and beat him up when we can. But, so, so who else is involved?

Tell, tell us, tell our listeners about the rest of the executive team at the dnc, our new chair and the other vice chairs, if you don't mind.

Speaker E: 00:38:48

Yeah, I mean, we have a great executive team at the dnc. They're all on our website, to be clear. But one of the people that I serve with is Malcolm Kenyatta. He's a state rep from Pennsylvania.

And then, sorry, there's Malcolm Kenyatta, he's a state rep from Pennsylvania. He's my fellow vice chair. There's Artie Blanco, who's a major, like labor leader from Nevada.

And then there is our chair of Civic engagement and voter participation, who I believe is from North Carolina. Her name's Reina and she's helping combat a lot of voter suppression stuff. She's an incredible, talented advocate.

And then we also have our chair, our ASDC chair, which is the association of State Democratic Party Chairs. And that's Jane Kleeb from Nebraska. She's awesome. And there's a few other people as well. But I, yeah, that. That's who our core team is.

And Ken Martin, obviously is the former head of the Minnesota Democratic Party.

And what makes me excited about that is Minnesota, despite having a very slim margin, was able to do a lot very successfully to advance and pass a progressive agenda despite having a super slim majority in the state legislature. And he has a lot of experience and he's a workhorse, too. He just kind of just puts his head down and does the work.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:39:56

fluential People list back in: 2018

What's the future hold for David Hogg? What are you looking at down the road?

Speaker E: 00:40:15

Maybe going to law school eventually, but I can't afford that right now, contrary to the conspiracy theories. But you know, what I'm really looking forward to is building the strongest Democratic Party that I can.

When I was younger, I originally said that I wanted to run for Congress when I was 25.

And then I realized I would be a lot more helpful to the gun safety movement and the, the Democratic Party as well if I work to elect more incredibly talented people where instead of me just being one vote, even if I had the honor of being elected, I could help elect 30 or 40, maybe the cycle, even 50 incredible young people around the country. And that's why I started Leaders We Deserve, which is our.

The PAC and super PAC that I run that helps elect young Democrats to state legislatures in Congress.

Our model is very similar to Emily's List, just for young progressive Democrats running for state legislature, Congress and probably city council this cycle as well. We're potentially going to do a pilot program on that.

David Hogg: 00:41:11

And what I describe us as is.

Speaker E: 00:41:12

Kind of like top gun for young people running for state legislature in Congress where we find, you know, the best of the best of the best of our generation and do everything we can to get them elected. And I co founded this organization with Kevin Lata, who was Maxwell Frost's campaign manager and has tons of campaign experience.

And last cycle we elected the youngest person to four different chambers around the country. And we spent $100,000 supporting Dante Pittman, the candidate in North Carolina who ended up breaking the super majority there as well.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:41:41

Well, listen, I know, you know, the work you've done on, on gun safety. I mean, I know for myself personally I get a couple of death threats and a lot of hateful backlash on, on social media.

And I'm sure what I get pales in comparison to what you get.

Speaker E: 00:41:55

Welcome to the club.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:41:57

I guess. How do you deal with that? I mean, how does that.

I'm sure you get barraged a lot more than I do and I know you've been swatted and all the other stuff. How do you, how do you keep pressing?

Speaker E: 00:42:08

Um, honestly, it's just like it gets.

It becomes so much that you just kind of become numb to it and also just learn how to laugh at it more than anything and have a good group of support and, and friends around you that, you know, we'll call you in if, if there, if there is something going wrong or they need to check in with you. But ultimately it's just making fun of them more than anything.

And also knowing that thankfully I'm going to outlive a lot of those people who, who are the most against me, like the Marjorie Taylor Greene's of the world.

Col. Moe Davis: 00:42:36

So, yeah, one of my, one of my favorites I get on social media is nobody gives a what you think, which, the fact that you responded exactly.

David B. Wheeler: 00:42:46

Yeah, my favorite is Wheeler. Go yourself. And I'm like, my. Okay, well, how do you do that? And I might if you'd explain it to me.

Anyway, David, I don't know if you drink alcohol or not, but we. We talk a lot about bourbon here because of Mose. And with bourbon, are you a bourbon guy or not?

Speaker E: 00:43:07

Really? I. I try to. I try to keep a sober mind working in politics.

David B. Wheeler: 00:43:14

You're a very smart man.

Speaker E: 00:43:16

You will.

David B. Wheeler: 00:43:16

You will be successful.

Speaker E: 00:43:17

I. I will say, sometimes doing this work, I. I'm like, you know what? I understand why so many politicians and other people end up becoming alcoholics.

It is well for.

David B. Wheeler: 00:43:28

Fortunately, Mo's not an alcoholic. And I know you didn't mean it that way.

Speaker E: 00:43:31

No, no, no, no, no. I don't mean it that way at all. I' moderation. It's just we're going through a lot right now.

David B. Wheeler: 00:43:37

Yeah, yeah. Well, I. Listen, I. I think the fact that you're on the DNC is Shake things up. Don't be timid. Please keep up the. Oh, I won't keep up this.

This attitude of, if it ain't working, fix it. And also just keep banging away on getting younger people there. I mean this.

You know, I think Chuck Schumer's helped your effort a lot in this last week. And listen, I've been a fan of his. I don't begrudge him, but God damn it, why do these people stick around so long?

You know, even Dick Durbin, who I'm a big supporter of because I lived in Chicago and a big fan of his, and he does a lot of great stuff. Why don't they give somebody else a chance once in a while? I just. That is a rhetorical question that vice chair of the DNC will never answer.

But we got to get younger people in to some of these safe seats as well, and I trust that you'll keep pushing the party in the. That direction. All right, well.

David B. Wheeler: 00:44:35

That's a good place for us to stop today. That's a wrap for this episode of MUCK YOU!, where we cut through the crap and call it like it is.

If you like what you heard, please subscribe, share, and spread the word. We're here to hold the powerful accountable. Remind you that democracy isn't a damn spectator sport.

So stay informed, stay engaged, and most importantly, keep your eye on the bigger picture. Mo. And I'll catch you next time with more facts backspire and a whole lot less. Until then, on behalf of Mo, David, and myself, muck you.

Narrator: 00:45:07

This has been MUCK YOU!, co hosted by colonel Moe Davis in Asheville, North Carolina and David Wheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.

merican Muckrakers. Copyright: 2025

You can learn more and donate@americanmuckrakers.com Follow us on X and Blue sky under American Muck. Come back soon for a new episode.