Episode 157

full
Published on:

3rd Jan 2026

Voting Wrap-Up: The System Is Broken & We’re Done Pretending (Full)

Final episode of the voting series and it’s a banger. Jerremy Alexander Newsome and Dave Conley go full send on gerrymandering’s death grip (87% of seats pre-rigged), why turnout is trash, and the fixes they’ve flipped on hard—like ranked-choice voting and national voting holidays. Zero cope, total rage, and a hard look at whether trust in this mess can ever come back. If you only listen to one voting ep, make it the one where they stop holding back.

Timestamps:

  • (00:00) Voting Wrap-Up
  • (01:04) Introduction and Kickoff – setting the stage
  • (01:54) Initial Thoughts on Voting – why it feels pointless
  • (03:46) Challenges and Solutions – first cracks at fixes
  • (06:15) National Voting Holiday – make Election Day a paid day off?
  • (08:12) Voter ID Debate – security vs suppression
  • (15:05) Gerrymandering Deep Dive – how districts get drawn to kill competition
  • (18:14) Reflections on Reform – Jerremy and Dave shift stances live
  • (24:29) Why People Sit Out – apathy, distrust, exhaustion
  • (27:47) Every Vote Actually Matters – the math that flips seats
  • (28:31) Electoral College Roast – defend or burn it down?
  • (31:09) Making Voting Easier & Fun – wild ideas that could work
  • (36:59) Housing Affordability Tie-In – how rigged districts block fixes
  • (42:56) Civic Education Crisis – we stopped teaching this stuff
  • (48:22) Next Up: Guns – teaser for the bloodbath episode
Transcript
Alex:

Welcome to Solving America’s Problems — Jerremy and Dave just

Alex:

wrapped their multi-week dive into who actually votes in this country,

Alex:

and one number stopped them cold.

Alex:

Eighty-seven percent of congressional races are already decided before

Alex:

a single vote gets cast — locked in at the primary stage because of

Alex:

gerrymandering and safe districts.

Alex:

Eighty-seven percent.

Alex:

That means in most elections, the general election is theater — the

Alex:

winner’s known months earlier.

Alex:

Dave sat there stunned, then said out loud what nobody wants

to admit:

for the overwhelming majority of Americans, your vote in

to admit:

November literally changes nothing.

to admit:

Jerremy didn’t push back — he just stared at the same stat.

to admit:

They spent weeks hunting fixes, from national voting holidays to county-based

to admit:

districts to ranked-choice experiments… and still came face-to-face with that 87%.

to admit:

How do you build trust in a system where nine out of ten races are rigged

to admit:

before the campaign even starts…

Dave:

And here we are.

Jerremy:

Yes.

Jerremy:

kickoff to ballot box number three,

Jerremy:

Rethinking Who Votes in America.

Jerremy:

That was fun.

Jerremy:

Everyone.

Dave:

We say that every time.

Dave:

That was fun.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Everyone loves our wrap-ups.

Jerremy:

The, what did we learn?

Jerremy:

Where did we go?

Jerremy:

What did we study?

Jerremy:

Who did we hear from?

Dave:

Yeah,

Jerremy:

And I felt like we did a really unique job of spraying this

Jerremy:

up over many weeks, many days,

Dave:

we did.

Jerremy:

many months.

Jerremy:

Hear, hearing from different people, hearing different thoughts,

Jerremy:

hearing different ideas, concerns.

Jerremy:

I actually ended up meeting with Reed in person in Vegas like two weeks ago.

Dave:

Nice.

Jerremy:

So we had some some more good follow-up conversation,

Jerremy:

but yeah, I enjoyed it, man.

Jerremy:

I think it'd be fun for people to learn or hear about where you started

Jerremy:

when we entered this, like where you were at on this whole journey.

Dave:

I think like a lot of people I I started with this general feeling,

Dave:

Hey, this isn't working, this doesn't work, this isn't working for me.

Dave:

The, this whole voting thing, this just seems ridiculous.

Dave:

And then you don't know what to believe with oh, voting fraud and hanging chads

Dave:

and like there's been nothing but voting fraud as the, it seems like the highest

Dave:

best use of political capital since 2016.

Dave:

It's just been Russians and stuffed ballot boxes.

Dave:

And nobody feels good about that, right?

Dave:

It's like you want your vote to count and yet underneath it all,

Dave:

like I knew things weren't right with things like gerrymandering.

Dave:

And that came up over and over again.

Dave:

So it felt very, like the process was broken for me, right?

Dave:

It's and there's a, there's this this creeping ni nihilism,

Dave:

I don't know how to say it,

Dave:

Of well who watches the watchers, if the people who are in charge of this, or the

Dave:

ones in charge of reforming it, and it's in their best interest to keep it exactly

Dave:

the same because they wanna stay in power, like it gets dark really quick, right?

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

So I, I think that's, I started in that space of, okay, this is a problem.

Dave:

Everybody knows it's a problem and we can't do anything about it.

Dave:

And that did evolve for me, I'd say.

Dave:

How about you?

Dave:

Where did you start in this?

Jerremy:

I started I believe from the, and I probably have a lot of this still, but

Jerremy:

definitely started from the perspective of we need more data, more numbers.

Jerremy:

A little bit more strictness to it and more sure, let's call it protocols.

Jerremy:

Putting very strategic things in place.

Jerremy:

And one of the, one of the aspects that definitely shifted in a nice way was

Jerremy:

the like national holiday for voting.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

That's actually probably a really great way to make it

Jerremy:

more standardized, to make it more available, to make it more open so that

Jerremy:

everyone does take off work from it and they actually have access to it.

Jerremy:

And that aspect, you have the ability to track more data

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

again, with AI and technology, just make it a little bit more seamless.

Jerremy:

I do think that there's still, I don't think we've solved for that yet.

Jerremy:

With all the different ways to vote, with like mail-in

Jerremy:

ballots and so on and so forth.

Jerremy:

But I do believe that there's some something there where it's one or

Jerremy:

two more deep dives into the do we track, how do we know for sure?

Jerremy:

Did these people vote or not?

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

especially if you were registered to vote and you didn't vote, why not?

Jerremy:

If you did register to vote and you voted awesome, like I don't really.

Jerremy:

Worry about personally having that data being shared.

Jerremy:

I think that could be something that'd be very easy to be privatized

Jerremy:

Secure way.

Jerremy:

But yeah, man I did, I enjoyed it.

Jerremy:

I enjoyed the journey.

Jerremy:

It was really fun to just have that conversation.

Jerremy:

I definitely was convinced that stricter identification and process integrity

Jerremy:

were central to voter confidence.

Jerremy:

And I still see slash saw civic participation through a lens

Jerremy:

of individual responsibility and procedural rigorousness.

Dave:

yeah.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

So it it enjoyable to know that I, after, and we'll get to it later,

Jerremy:

but speaking to Rob, there's definitely people who really care about the process,

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

about the numbers, who do care about the data, who do truly

Jerremy:

are putting in the mathematical sequences to figure this stuff out.

Jerremy:

get really dialed in.

Dave:

That's, I didn't participate in the discussion was wrong.

Dave:

I was in the background for those of you, I think we addressed it

Dave:

a little bit at the top of this.

Dave:

These are launching right now as we're recording this.

Dave:

I was there, but I, as you can hear from my voice I'm still recovering a

Dave:

bit from a wee bit of a virus that, that that grabbed me and held me down.

Dave:

But I was listening to it and I was re-listening to Rob and I. I

Dave:

love that we have advocates that are so passionate about that he's

Dave:

devoted his entire life to this.

Dave:

And that's the piece that gives me hope, right?

Dave:

It tamps down that, that nihilism of oh, we can't do anything when

Dave:

we like, oh, but we have people and he's made big changes with the

Dave:

proportionate voting, the rank choice, voting, those things have happened.

Dave:

And the one that, that is, I think the easiest one that we can do that

Dave:

would actually help quite a bit would be that national holiday.

Dave:

That's gonna be a hard one.

Dave:

Not for people, for anybody in power to say that's a bad idea.

Dave:

Like that's an easy one.

Dave:

And it's not one of those direct fixes, but it's on the side of it.

Dave:

It'll be like, okay, if we're getting more people to, to participate.

Dave:

We're gonna have more people who are going to want reform.

Dave:

I think approaching voting reform head on is a, is it is just, it's always

Dave:

going to hit up against the people who are gonna wanna keep it the same.

Dave:

So we have to like, we have to hit at it at the side and the is gonna

Dave:

be like national holiday, that means we're gonna get more people involved.

Dave:

That means with more voices, more people, more power around that, then

Dave:

that will lead to bigger, better things.

Dave:

And I think that's my favorite one that came out of all of this,

Dave:

which was, yeah, national holiday.

Dave:

That seems like an easy win.

Jerremy:

That's exactly from all the things we discussed, that does

Jerremy:

seem pretty pretty reasonable.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

You can't Hey, you wanna change voting?

Jerremy:

Why do you wanna change voting?

Jerremy:

'cause you like to vote.

Jerremy:

It makes a lot of sense.

Jerremy:

It's a national, let's make it a holiday

Dave:

Totally.

Jerremy:

because it's once every what, two years, let's probably say that would.

Dave:

Yeah.

Dave:

In November, it'd be like we can bump it up near Thanksgiving maybe, or maybe

Dave:

it's a, may maybe it'd be the what, the second Tuesday in November, right?

Jerremy:

Yeah,

Dave:

Or first Tuesday in November.

Dave:

I don't know which one it is.

Jerremy:

Tuesday of November.

Dave:

Tuesday in November, right?

Dave:

Yeah, that sounds good to me.

Jerremy:

Hey, I like it, man.

Jerremy:

Let's just make that, let's just push that law through.

Dave:

I think that's an easy one.

Dave:

I think we can actually make that one happen, right?

Dave:

That feels very doable, gets more people involved, people

Dave:

who wanna have the day off.

Dave:

They can just have the day off.

Dave:

We can make parties out of it.

Dave:

We can, have voting drives.

Dave:

There's so many things.

Dave:

I, I hear you on the ID thing, and I, we, we talked to Reed, we talked to

Dave:

oh, we talked to, oh, Tyler, right?

Dave:

We've talked about ID a few times and, like I live here in, in Florida

Dave:

where, strict id you have to show it.

Dave:

I do hear, and I heard it a bit from from our last guest of yeah.

Dave:

Like there are still a bunch of people who don't have IDs and

Dave:

that's a significant barrier.

Dave:

I still keep coming back to where we landed on it, which

Dave:

is let's fix that problem.

Dave:

Everybody should have an id.

Dave:

Let's make it inexpensive, easy.

Dave:

Let's have the ID buses in all of the neighborhoods that need to have them.

Dave:

It's like having an ID is pretty basic, pretty straightforward, and I

Dave:

think we can overcome those objections by fixing the ID part of this.

Dave:

I think there's always gonna be edge cases of people who may not, if they're

Dave:

just new to the country and they don't have some source documentation,

Dave:

but you can get there, right?

Dave:

You can get there with Hey, this is who I am.

Dave:

I test who I am, this is how I get a gas bill, this address,

Dave:

this is, on and on, right?

Dave:

My buddy Jerremy says, this is who I am.

Dave:

So

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

I think let's fix the ID thing, but let's fix it separately.

Dave:

And then you can definitely use it for things like voting.

Dave:

And I think it's okay to tie those things together, I think.

Dave:

I think you're all for that, right?

Jerremy:

I'm all for that.

Jerremy:

Yep.

Jerremy:

I'm, that's, I vote yes.

Jerremy:

Hearing Yeah.

Jerremy:

Tyler talk about it and Reed and Rob and really all from different perspectives.

Jerremy:

I was intrigued to learn how many people had a relatively strong opinion on it.

Jerremy:

Outside of our three guests, there were a lot of people that

Jerremy:

were like, no, don't do that.

Jerremy:

'cause you're gonna disenfranchise or you're gonna, you're gonna

Jerremy:

create too much separation.

Jerremy:

Or there's a lot of people that don't have that, and that's unfair.

Jerremy:

And I do exactly agree with what you said, and I think really what

Jerremy:

we said is, man, we can fix that.

Jerremy:

That's

Dave:

Yeah,

Jerremy:

right?

Dave:

easy,

Jerremy:

get everyone an ID

Dave:

right?

Jerremy:

and then just make it a requirement

Dave:

It's gonna be free, you can't afford it.

Dave:

Here's your id.

Dave:

Great.

Dave:

It doesn't even have to be a driver's license or anything.

Dave:

It'd just be like, like walking around Id, this is you, this is who you are.

Dave:

You can use it for all sort of things.

Dave:

You can use it to, to check out books at your library, whatever, right?

Jerremy:

All kinds of things.

Jerremy:

Having an idea, like if you want to go to the gym,

Dave:

That was the story.

Dave:

You couldn't go work out because you didn't have your.

Jerremy:

go work out at Lifetime Fitness in Laguna Beach, California

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

buddies,

Dave:

Nope.

Jerremy:

don't have an id.

Jerremy:

You can't get jacked without an id.

Jerremy:

So you need some.

Jerremy:

So that is a, am a. Legal system of the us I think that's just

Jerremy:

a valid, useful thing to have.

Dave:

Yeah

Jerremy:

I do agree with, I think Reid was really one who brought up.

Jerremy:

It was like I really don't think, illegal immigrants are flooding to the booths

Jerremy:

and making a bunch of votes anyway.

Jerremy:

And I agree with that.

Jerremy:

I don't think that's

Dave:

We talked about that too, and I think I'm a little bit more liberal

Dave:

on this, meaning that regardless of your legal status whether you're

Dave:

a citizen or not, let's just leave it at that US citizen versus not.

Dave:

You live here, right?

Dave:

You have a vested interest by living in your community.

Dave:

I am totally fine.

Dave:

With regardless of immigration status, if you are a student from someplace

Dave:

else, if you are, a permanent resident, if you're like, whatever it is, you are

Dave:

here in the United States and you are here for the next one year, five year

Dave:

indefinitely, whatever it is, right?

Dave:

You have a ve vested interest in your community.

Dave:

So yeah, you should be able to vote in your local elections.

Dave:

You should be able to vote in your county-wide stuff, and who's

Dave:

gonna be collecting your garbage and picking up stray dogs and your

Dave:

local ordinances on, on, on noise.

Dave:

And like all of that stuff is a part of you and your community.

Dave:

And then maybe states can decide whether or not you can

Dave:

do state, level stuff or not.

Dave:

I tend to think yeah, that, regardless of your status, you should be able to

Dave:

do state stuff when it gets to be like federal and your federal representation.

Dave:

Yeah, I think that really is for citizens.

Dave:

I don't know why I feel that way, but it just, it that

Dave:

feels more you're an American.

Dave:

So you're voting on America, like I'm of the mindset that like,

Dave:

if you live in a community, you should be able to vote in community

Dave:

regardless of your quote unquote,

Jerremy:

yeah, I

Dave:

nation of origin,

Jerremy:

no, I actually love that perspective.

Jerremy:

I love that perspective.

Jerremy:

I think it would be more of a, again, from the ID perspective of if people

Jerremy:

have, this is who I am, are you?

Jerremy:

If you're a student, you're like, oh, I walk into the thing.

Jerremy:

Here's my student visa.

Jerremy:

Oh, you're here legally.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Anyone who's here illegally,

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

yeah, absolutely.

Jerremy:

Vote in anything local.

Jerremy:

'cause you live here.

Dave:

You live here,

Jerremy:

You're buying food, you're buying

Dave:

right?

Jerremy:

so you're

Dave:

Yeah,

Jerremy:

all that good stuff.

Jerremy:

If you're here illegally, I don't think you should be voting in anything.

Dave:

really?

Dave:

I don't know.

Dave:

I don't care about the legal status all that much.

Dave:

'cause going back to our immigration debate,

Jerremy:

Yep.

Dave:

Let's fix the, let's fix the, everybody's here to work, so

Dave:

let's fix it on the working side.

Dave:

And I, so I'm like, look, if it, regardless, I really am.

Dave:

It's regardless of status, if you live in an area, you should

Dave:

be able to vote on something.

Dave:

I dunno.

Jerremy:

what I like when Reid was essentially saying there hasn't really

Jerremy:

ever been a specific, influx or a diatribe of very particular people.

Jerremy:

They're like, let's totally swing something.

Jerremy:

'cause we're all, we're illegal and we're all gonna vote this one way and

Jerremy:

we're gonna bring in a cartel member.

Jerremy:

he's gonna become, he's gonna become mayor,

Dave:

That would be interesting.

Dave:

Okay.

Dave:

Yeah, I can imagine some scenarios where I might backtrack.

Jerremy:

But soft scenarios.

Dave:

Right.

Jerremy:

'cause, because, yeah, I think it's just again, back to the

Jerremy:

ID part, that just seems so easy

Dave:

So straightforward.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Everyone could just get lucky.

Jerremy:

I'm a human and I really like living here.

Jerremy:

It's a great country.

Jerremy:

Here's an id, I am that person.

Jerremy:

Yeah, it'd be really fun.

Jerremy:

Make it makes Starbucks orders a lot easier.

Jerremy:

You can just show them your card.

Jerremy:

Hey, here's my, here's who I am, here's how my name is spelled.

Jerremy:

And then the Starbucks barista writes it correctly.

Dave:

I can already hear the civil libertarians in our audience.

Dave:

Just dying on the inside going, no, I don't watch an id.

Dave:

No.

Jerremy:

Well, I. But they already, the civil libertarians

Jerremy:

already have an id, right?

Dave:

But it's in your name, right?

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

It's good times.

Jerremy:

Good times.

Dave:

So yeah we talked to Reid.

Dave:

That was great.

Dave:

That was God that feels so long ago.

Dave:

Then we talked to Tyler.

Jerremy:

Yep.

Jerremy:

Both are fun.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Reid's a civic observer.

Jerremy:

Had he just, he loved it.

Jerremy:

He's in it.

Jerremy:

He loves talking politics.

Jerremy:

We sat down for breakfast, three minutes in boom.

Jerremy:

Politics.

Jerremy:

It was like politics and stocks and money.

Jerremy:

That was the breakfast conversation.

Jerremy:

And it was nice.

Jerremy:

It was interesting that he illustrated how distrust elections is cultivated, right?

Jerremy:

It's not really accidental, which makes.

Jerremy:

Perfect sense.

Jerremy:

And he definitely positioned himself in a way that gerrymandering the

Jerremy:

foundational democratic flaw.

Jerremy:

And

Dave:

It is it the deep wound?

Dave:

When it gets down to it, we didn't find, I, maybe next time I'm gonna find

Dave:

somebody who's yeah, gerrymandering.

Dave:

Go gerrymandering.

Jerremy:

It's the best.

Jerremy:

I love salamanders.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

It's yeah, I don't think we're, again, that's just like people wanting

Dave:

to stay in power for the sake of power.

Dave:

And that's all, partisan politics.

Dave:

And it has nothing to do with representation.

Dave:

It has nothing to do that's when it, it feels the most to me,

Dave:

that, our representatives care the least about us when it affects

Dave:

their ability to keep their job.

Jerremy:

On gerrymandering.

Jerremy:

You said ah let's find someone that made this awesome.

Dave:

Oh

Dave:

Who watches the watchers?

Dave:

Like I, is, we're seeing it now with, states wanting to redistrict

Dave:

right now in time for, for midterms coming up this time next year.

Dave:

So California's gonna add, Florida's gonna add, Texas is

Dave:

gonna add, new York's gonna add.

Dave:

Everybody's gonna add like a bunch of representatives, try

Dave:

and balance each other out and try to get like the upper hand.

Dave:

None of it actually serves any of the voters at all.

Dave:

This is just, as politicians being politicians,

Jerremy:

Yep.

Dave:

I fixing gerrymandering isn't going to be a thing that we can do.

Dave:

Not until we, we take it out of the hands of politicians,

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

Like that's, this is not gonna be it.

Jerremy:

Un unless unless we have an AI redraw borders or something.

Dave:

I love it.

Dave:

But then

Jerremy:

But again, you gotta take it outta the hands.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

be like, okay.

Dave:

Yeah

Jerremy:

hey Jerry, you can't draw your district lines in North Carolina.

Dave:

And you brought this up, I think more than once, you brought it up with,

Dave:

I think in every single one of ours, which is look we already have counties.

Dave:

Like, why what's the deal here?

Dave:

Like why do we have anything else?

Dave:

But, and man, that makes so much more sense to me.

Dave:

And like for Miami-Dade for the county, I, because of how many million

Dave:

people live here, I would just get, five representatives that would

Jerremy:

Yep.

Dave:

Miami-Dade, and it's not, like this particular district, it's

Dave:

this county like, and all five of 'em, and in a more sparse area, they

Dave:

might have two or three counties.

Dave:

And that, I don't know that seems so straightforward, so simple.

Dave:

It's like we don't need gerrymandering.

Dave:

We already have

Jerremy:

Correct.

Dave:

boundaries.

Dave:

They're already

Jerremy:

They're already there.

Jerremy:

They're already drawn.

Jerremy:

Just stop with the politic games.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

So that that one's, that's the one that I'm, I love that we

Jerremy:

both beautifully agree on that.

Jerremy:

That also sounds really easy.

Jerremy:

And you know what?

Jerremy:

It's pretty straightforward, right?

Jerremy:

All that stuff is already done.

Jerremy:

It's already there.

Jerremy:

It's already outlined for us.

Jerremy:

There's not a lot of whole, not a lot of work that we need to do.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

So that was nice.

Jerremy:

I re-listened to some of Tyler's episodes, really just yesterday and.

Jerremy:

I like that guy, man.

Jerremy:

I love me some Tyler.

Jerremy:

He lives in Vegas.

Jerremy:

I'm excited to hang out with him again soon.

Dave:

Fantastic.

Jerremy:

Yeah, just really cool guy.

Jerremy:

He just had a, he was very connected to what he would feel like was like

Jerremy:

the moral endurance of this country.

Jerremy:

His, he had a big emphasis on individual integrity and kind of

Jerremy:

reframed voting as a reflection of personal virtue, which I liked.

Jerremy:

It was really nice.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

this is, that's gonna change behavior more than anything else,

Dave:

is if we make it cool to vote,

Dave:

And we make it about, your.

Dave:

To be the best person that you are.

Dave:

You are, part of your, part of the areas that you work in are your

Dave:

community, yourself, your health, your mental, your spiritual, all

Dave:

of these components are part of it.

Dave:

And one of them is civic.

Dave:

And I don't think we spend any time talking about how

Dave:

we're feeding our civic soul.

Dave:

and I think bringing that back to things that you talk about

Dave:

all the time is education.

Dave:

Growing up I did in my day like we did do like we had civics classes,

Dave:

like we, we talked about history, we talked about, civic engagement.

Dave:

We did a pledge, allegiance to the flag.

Dave:

Like the, these things were, they were part of being, just learning

Dave:

about who we are and what our responsibilities were as citizens.

Dave:

And I think.

Dave:

Making it cool to vote and ensuring that people are like, like this is important.

Dave:

And it's a thing then that in itself, without, even with a holiday, I

Dave:

think that in itself would be really helpful to just say, Hey, vote.

Jerremy:

Yep.

Dave:

And I think

Jerremy:

I,

Dave:

from Tyler, right?

Jerremy:

yeah, I did.

Jerremy:

Man, you can't vote your way to virtue.

Jerremy:

I just, I liked it and I dug him.

Jerremy:

He was a cool dude.

Jerremy:

Good energy.

Jerremy:

Especially on this topic, and I think a lot of his, followers and listeners

Jerremy:

enjoyed him being on the show.

Jerremy:

And then you had your homie Rob Richie.

Dave:

Oh I just, I'd reached out.

Dave:

I, that was the first time I'd met Rob too.

Dave:

I'd got turned on to, an organization in California that had a bunch of national

Dave:

advocates on voting and voting reform.

Dave:

And I reached out to everybody that was on the panel I got connected

Dave:

with one, one group Nick, he wasn't able to join us just because our, the

Dave:

timing of things just didn't work out.

Dave:

But Rob was like right there, and I was super excited to have

Dave:

Rob because he, he's a, he is an absolute rockstar in the field.

Dave:

And I love people who are like famous in their vertical.

Dave:

It's like I have a buddy I grew up with him.

Dave:

He is, brother from another.

Dave:

And he's really big in the pinball community.

Dave:

He's done a lot of technology in there.

Dave:

He's he does a lot of the programming.

Dave:

He does a lot of, and he is done it for years and years.

Dave:

And like the pinball community is fierce.

Dave:

And I had no idea.

Dave:

I had no, I knew nothing about them.

Dave:

And then we were walking around in Vegas a few years back and he, people

Dave:

were stopping him for his autograph.

Dave:

And I'm like, what is going on?

Dave:

And he goes yeah, like I'm super famous in this one, one area and they're just

Dave:

rabid fans, so people want my autograph.

Dave:

I'm like, that is the coolest.

Dave:

So like Rob is, a long time advocate and a long time policy wonk.

Dave:

He's, he lives and breathes this and I just, makes me happy to know that

Dave:

people like Rob, they're out there and they are making a change like his work.

Dave:

Led to actual reforms in New York State, in Alaska, in, in, in a variety of

Dave:

areas for, proportional representation and for ranked choice voting, which

Dave:

more complicated than they are.

Dave:

But I think that both of those things, if we can get people to wrap their heads

Dave:

around it, I think, those are cool too.

Dave:

I don't know how politicians feel about them.

Dave:

I have a feeling that if it somehow will, if they think that it might hurt

Dave:

their chances of continuing what they're doing, that they seem to be against it.

Dave:

But like in California, I had ranked choice not here in, in in Florida.

Dave:

What's the deal in Nevada?

Dave:

You know what?

Dave:

haven't voted in Nevada lately, have you?

Jerremy:

I haven't, no.

Jerremy:

Yep.

Jerremy:

So I'm not a hundred percent entirely sure,

Dave:

You really got to talk to him.

Dave:

I was hanging on for dear life.

Dave:

What was

Jerremy:

bro.

Jerremy:

Glad you're alive.

Dave:

Yeah,

Jerremy:

Glad you're live after that episode.

Jerremy:

I just, yeah, to your point, I like the people that focus on a niche

Jerremy:

and the guy drilled down into it.

Jerremy:

He is, he's in it.

Jerremy:

And I think I, I believe I talked a little bit more about the proportional

Jerremy:

voting than Rank Choice, but at the same time it's, it really isn't that

Jerremy:

hard because most people, they do feel like they only have one real vote.

Jerremy:

Like they're always saying you're voting between the lesser of two evils,

Dave:

yeah.

Jerremy:

they're like, I don't really wanna vote for either of these people.

Jerremy:

But if some, so if someone's like, all right, I really actually kinda

Jerremy:

like this person, so I'm gonna put them as my number one vote.

Jerremy:

But you know what?

Jerremy:

Trump, he's a scallywag, but he was a scallywag already

Jerremy:

for four years previously.

Jerremy:

I'll put 'em as number two.

Jerremy:

And so then it's like, all right, you're really putting

Jerremy:

the candidate that you want.

Jerremy:

Then there's still Trump there.

Jerremy:

And so you're still listing that vote.

Jerremy:

And if everyone does that and they just mix and match who number one is,

Jerremy:

they're slowly getting to actually vote.

Jerremy:

But then number two wins.

Jerremy:

'cause that was a majority

Dave:

Take all right?

Dave:

Like we're

Dave:

The post.

Dave:

That's how we are.

Dave:

And

Dave:

Choice changes that I, it was shocking to me to, to see the number,

Dave:

the number that 87% every single election are already decided before

Dave:

you even get to the ballot box.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

Because of the, and they're effectively decided at the primary.

Dave:

If you win the primary, it's what happens in New York, right?

Dave:

If you're a Democrat in New York City and a mayor, you're gonna win.

Dave:

there's, that's, it's already been decided.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Which, correct me if I'm wrong, I think that's the exact opposite

Jerremy:

of what voting is supposed to do.

Jerremy:

Okay.

Jerremy:

Just making sure.

Jerremy:

Just trying to remember that.

Jerremy:

Yeah, man.

Jerremy:

It's.

Jerremy:

It's very unique and it's very fun.

Jerremy:

It's very interesting.

Jerremy:

Other than the general ones, I think we probably have an understanding of what

Jerremy:

surprised you the most about why people don't vote from the entire conversations.

Dave:

Did we talk about that?

Dave:

As I'm thinking about it, it just seems know that people in my life who

Dave:

do not vote, they are disinterested in politics to begin with.

Dave:

It's not, it's not on their radar.

Dave:

They don't follow it.

Dave:

It's not their thing.

Dave:

They don't, they're not up on current events.

Dave:

It's just not on the radar, right?

Dave:

They live their lives and they have full lives without any really

Dave:

knowledge of what's going on in the world, which God bless 'em, I think

Dave:

they'll probably outlive us all.

Dave:

But the piece that goes with that is my vote doesn't matter.

Jerremy:

Yeah,

Dave:

What about you?

Dave:

What why do you think people don't vote?

Jerremy:

Yes.

Jerremy:

So the reason I don't think people don't vote other than those two

Jerremy:

probably really just is the feeling that it, the vote doesn't matter.

Jerremy:

So it's less like probably back more to the disenfranchisement.

Jerremy:

They're like, Hey, they already feel like a 7% of it's rigged anyway.

Jerremy:

So it's pro, if you live in a red state.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Tennis, Tennessee, Kentucky, and you don't like a

Jerremy:

Republican, what are you gonna do?

Jerremy:

So it's almost like they're not gonna show, they're not gonna show up.

Jerremy:

'cause they're like, oh I'm not even gonna, my vote doesn't matter.

Jerremy:

It's not gonna, it's not gonna win.

Dave:

yeah, but Barack Obama won Tennessee, so I, you know anybody who's

Dave:

saying that, I'm like, I don't know, man.

Dave:

I, I particularly with with who's defining what's a Republican and who's

Dave:

defining well and the general dislike of the Democrats right now, the corporate

Dave:

Democrats are at record low approval.

Dave:

So they are starting their transformation that the Republicans

Dave:

started effectively in 2011.

Dave:

Which was the tea parties, that started re reforming and refactoring what

Dave:

the Republicans thought they were.

Dave:

And then Trump blew it all up.

Dave:

And so like the shape of the Republican party today and the shape of the

Dave:

party, with Mitt Romney, those are two different, those are alien species,

Dave:

And they're still doing their evolution.

Dave:

But, all of those deep red states were purple or Democrats for years and years.

Dave:

And it was the, it was the Democrats that lost those states.

Dave:

I hear it when somebody says my vote doesn't matter because I'm

Dave:

a democrat in a red state, or I'm a Republican in a blue state.

Dave:

I don't know, man.

Dave:

Particularly if we're talking about rank choice voting and

Dave:

the fickleness of voters.

Dave:

I don't know.

Jerremy:

I think I, I think it's just a realization that we can,

Jerremy:

you have someone that just keeps championing the idea, right?

Jerremy:

You just make it cool.

Jerremy:

You start making it cool to vote.

Jerremy:

People will just take it away.

Jerremy:

Like in, you have the holiday and goes, Hey, regardless if your, who cares?

Jerremy:

If you don't think your vote matters, it's.

Jerremy:

It's just cool to do, just do it.

Jerremy:

It's just fun.

Jerremy:

You get a barbecue and then I think more people will kind, they

Jerremy:

probably will end up doing it.

Jerremy:

One thing that we didn't talk, I.

Dave:

For every person who says, my vote doesn't matter.

Dave:

I literally listen to a state representative in Virginia.

Dave:

'cause Virginia has a vote.

Dave:

This, like this time they're an off, they're an off year vote,

Dave:

for governor and for their state.

Dave:

And I heard one of the state reps say, yeah, I won my first district.

Dave:

Nobody thought I would ever win and become a state rep. I said,

Dave:

she said, I won it by 11 votes.

Dave:

And I'm like, okay there, there your vote can really count, and we were talking

Dave:

about the hanging chads here in Florida, like every vote actually did count if

Dave:

you voted in in Florida in, in, 1999.

Dave:

So it's I, I. I, I'm I'm gonna hear people saying, yeah, my vote doesn't count.

Dave:

But I think that those are people who are already not civically

Dave:

engaged and we gotta make it

Jerremy:

Yeah,

Dave:

It's

Jerremy:

exactly.

Dave:

it may not count and you're like, you may not believe it

Dave:

counts, but it's gonna be cool,

Jerremy:

yep.

Jerremy:

Exactly.

Jerremy:

It's gonna be a barbecue, bro.

Jerremy:

We're gonna have a party.

Jerremy:

It's gonna be really fun.

Jerremy:

Yeah, I like that.

Jerremy:

Two things we didn't actually talk about at all.

Jerremy:

I don't believe, unless I just really spaced out.

Jerremy:

Should we, thoughts on electoral college?

Jerremy:

No one said that at all.

Dave:

we

Jerremy:

Do we just get rid of that and just do a popularity vote?

Jerremy:

For let's, obviously we're talking federal, like primary

Jerremy:

presidential candidate.

Jerremy:

Best person wins.

Jerremy:

Go out to the ballot box.

Jerremy:

Get rid of the electoral college.

Jerremy:

Thank you.

Dave:

I, I hear you and you run into the same problem of small states don't matter.

Jerremy:

They don't matter now with the electoral college.

Dave:

Yeah, because we have swing, states.

Jerremy:

You got the big Exactly.

Jerremy:

You got the big states.

Jerremy:

They don't matter now.

Jerremy:

Like Nevada with its four votes, Wyoming, Montana, North

Jerremy:

Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri

Dave:

But if

Jerremy:

Alaska, Hawaii.

Dave:

but if

Jerremy:

I.

Dave:

just, proportionate first pass the post, if we didn't have

Dave:

rank choice voting, if we didn't have, if we didn't have proportional

Dave:

representation, it was just like straight up popular vote for president,

Dave:

then no one would ever go to Iowa.

Dave:

There wouldn't be any point in it.

Dave:

Nobody would ever go to Nevada, like that.

Dave:

Nobody would show up in Arizona.

Dave:

Everybody would just be camped out, God forbid, in Florida,

Dave:

New York, Texas, and California, because nothing else would matter,

Jerremy:

Maybe,

Dave:

it?

Jerremy:

Because it's just a popularity contest, so it's it's a, it is just

Jerremy:

a pure numbers game at that point.

Jerremy:

Show up to vote because your one vote's gonna be the, it is just a running tally.

Jerremy:

I think if it was just purely a, any one votes because we haven't

Jerremy:

done it that way ever in America.

Jerremy:

It's always been electoral college state.

Jerremy:

Which to, to my knowledge, I don't think we ever had just like a

Jerremy:

puron, like who has the most votes?

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

There's always there.

Dave:

It is literally in the electoral college is in the Constitution.

Dave:

We,

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

So again we probably prob

Dave:

The idea was like, look, big states,

Jerremy:

yeah.

Dave:

to rule by, by, pop, the tyranny of the of the majority.

Dave:

We want to have, we want to have representation from even the small states.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

No, it's just interesting.

Jerremy:

I just throwing it out there as a fun question, but

Dave:

How about

Jerremy:

I,

Dave:

I would go with that.

Dave:

How about that?

Dave:

Go back to the county method.

Jerremy:

yeah.

Jerremy:

Counties.

Dave:

States don't matter.

Dave:

It's now county by county.

Dave:

By county,

Jerremy:

I could dig that.

Jerremy:

That'd be really fun.

Dave:

yeah.

Jerremy:

It'd be really nice if we had the lines drawn for the county

Jerremy:

so that we knew where they were.

Dave:

Like

Jerremy:

I feel like it would just make it helpful.

Jerremy:

So on

Dave:

how soon before that they would start redrawing the county

Dave:

It's oh crap, I'm not in Miami-Dade anymore.

Dave:

I'm in Fairfax.

Dave:

I'm like, oh, no.

Jerremy:

oh, no.

Jerremy:

That's a unfortunate but very valid question.

Jerremy:

Yeah, man.

Jerremy:

This, no, this has been fun.

Jerremy:

Again, I think what we have definitely really understood is it probably

Jerremy:

wouldn't be that much of a challenge to just get more people to vote and

Jerremy:

start hearing from more individuals.

Jerremy:

And again, I think with a holiday.

Jerremy:

People just start talking about voting, making it, it's cool.

Jerremy:

You should just do it.

Jerremy:

It's really awesome.

Jerremy:

It's gonna be a party that by itself, we probably get, I would

Jerremy:

say, 10 to 15% more participation.

Jerremy:

'cause there's also people that just, they gotta work dude.

Jerremy:

And they're grinding it out and they got the kids and they got the bills and

Jerremy:

they got the mortgage and they got all the things like, I'm not gonna go vote.

Jerremy:

Who cares?

Jerremy:

It's stupid, it's dumb.

Jerremy:

It doesn't matter anyway.

Jerremy:

Like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Jerremy:

I'm just not in politics.

Jerremy:

I really don't care.

Jerremy:

But if you make it a lot easier for people to vote I, I think more people

Jerremy:

would vote and by easy, again, I hear the comments when I say, oh, but if you have

Jerremy:

voter id, it's not gonna make it easy.

Jerremy:

It's we can solve that problem can easily be solved.

Jerremy:

That's a

Jerremy:

Four day solution.

Dave:

Biometrics,

Jerremy:

Yep.

Dave:

Like I buy things on my computer, it's we can solve the ID

Dave:

thing that, that seems like way easier than getting people to the to vote.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

The big lever for me continues to be national voting, holiday.

Dave:

Sure.

Dave:

We can get everybody an id.

Dave:

I think that's great.

Dave:

We talked about mandatory voting.

Dave:

That feels very anti-American to me.

Dave:

But I also feel like, I dunno that sounds pretty good to me too.

Dave:

I think it should be mandatory Or is it a it's voting

Jerremy:

I think

Dave:

That must be exercised.

Jerremy:

exactly.

Jerremy:

I think it's a right.

Jerremy:

I do think it's a right.

Jerremy:

I don't think it must be exercised though, like it's a right to own guns,

Dave:

Right.

Jerremy:

but we ain't forcing, we ain't forcing everyone to buy guns.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

gun with every voter registration.

Jerremy:

Now you get a bunch of owners, you go, oh man, you got so many voters showing up.

Dave:

about paying people to vote?

Dave:

Lot.

Dave:

Vote for me, here's a hundred bucks.

Dave:

But it's okay

Jerremy:

every time someone votes, they get paid.

Dave:

You're getting a, you're getting a, a gift card to Chili's.

Dave:

If you show up to vote,

Jerremy:

I love Chili's, bro.

Jerremy:

Who doesn't love Chili's?

Dave:

you get a blooming onion at the

Jerremy:

Uhhuh.

Jerremy:

I think that, that would actually, would incentivize

Jerremy:

people a lot more than you think.

Jerremy:

That's why you thought it, but yeah, it would, people would get pretty,

Jerremy:

pretty pumped and amped by that.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Definitely don't hate that idea.

Jerremy:

And a lot of people have asked me, like from the, my presidential

Jerremy:

race and presidential standpoint, that is one of my goals or one of

Jerremy:

my ideals or beliefs is I believe over the next seven to eight years.

Jerremy:

I can and do have the ability to speak to and educate and conversate

Jerremy:

and converse with the large group of individuals that do not currently vote.

Jerremy:

'cause I right now in the US it's let's just call it 90 million.

Jerremy:

90 million.

Jerremy:

That's 180 million.

Jerremy:

So that means you got another, that's half the country votes 50%.

Jerremy:

So if I can go capture.

Jerremy:

30% of the votes, the that 50% that don't currently vote just 'cause it's

Jerremy:

cool, it's exciting, it's unique.

Jerremy:

I'm a great guy.

Jerremy:

I actually care about you.

Jerremy:

I was you, I'm from you.

Jerremy:

We're gonna change the educational system.

Dave:

yeah.

Jerremy:

It's unique.

Jerremy:

It's a right, it's a privilege, it's an honor.

Jerremy:

It's virtuous, it's incredible.

Jerremy:

Let's all go vote.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

then some of the other 50%, I'll have to capture

Jerremy:

some of them mathematically.

Jerremy:

So then if you have one person gets 30% of the votes mathematically,

Jerremy:

that probably could be the winner

Dave:

It's,

Jerremy:

based on our kind, the way we cut the pie now?

Dave:

it's gonna be young people over and over again.

Dave:

And that showed up in our research too, which is if you don't start

Dave:

voting young, you tend to not vote.

Dave:

If you've never voted, then you know, once you get into your twenties, you're

Dave:

not gonna vote thirties, forget it.

Dave:

Forties, what's voting?

Dave:

And yet,

Jerremy:

Yeah,

Dave:

Like young people are the, the current young crowd are, is

Dave:

our largest population because the boomers are finally dying.

Dave:

They can sway elections.

Dave:

New York right now is the demographics are shifting wildly because a

Jerremy:

time.

Dave:

of young people are showing up to, to vote for mayor and they never have.

Dave:

Getting young people excited about their issues, I, I'd say that'd be

Dave:

another reason why people don't vote is it's the politicians are talking

Dave:

about things that don't matter.

Dave:

And I'm feeling that now.

Dave:

Like we, heard a lot of blah, blah, blah.

Dave:

We're gonna fix that.

Dave:

We're gonna do this, we're gonna do that.

Dave:

Promises made, promises kept, and it's been just a load of, malarkey.

Jerremy:

I won.

Jerremy:

I had a bet that you're gonna use the word malarkey in this episode.

Dave:

You got the bingo card on that

Jerremy:

Yep.

Dave:

was malarkey, but that's the, that's the politicians

Dave:

don't listen to me mentality.

Dave:

Which I think is super valid.

Dave:

Because the things that are important to most Americans, that they're

Dave:

safe, that they have good education, that they have a good job, that they

Dave:

have a brighter future, that they're healthy, that they, you know, all of

Dave:

those things those table stakes those.

Dave:

And when you do everything but talk to those things, then you run into problems.

Dave:

I think,

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

Like you're seeing a lot in the current administration where they

Dave:

talked about those things that got young people excited about those things.

Dave:

More young people voted Republican.

Dave:

And then at any other time this last session and yet the exact things that

Dave:

young people are worried about ai yeah.

Dave:

That that's, we've just poured gasoline on top of that.

Dave:

So okay.

Dave:

Uncertain future, interna, focused on international, non-domestic.

Dave:

Yeah, that's, that keeps happening.

Dave:

Tariffs.

Dave:

You're driving up my prices still.

Dave:

I can't afford a house.

Dave:

Like that, that's, that, that housing affordability is at the top of most

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

thing.

Dave:

If you are under the age of 40, it's house.

Dave:

And

Jerremy:

Yes.

Dave:

when was the last time you heard a politician talk about housing?

Jerremy:

Oh, correct.

Jerremy:

Correct.

Jerremy:

And that is, it is so unique and so interesting because we're also the

Jerremy:

politicians right now are using that as a divisive oh he's doing all these

Jerremy:

things wrong because he is raising all the prices because of whatever.

Jerremy:

So he's making you, or she's making it more expensive.

Jerremy:

And obviously everyone's kinda like blaming the Trump right now

Jerremy:

'cause he is in office, right?

Jerremy:

So it's hey, housing is expensive, it's your fault 'cause of

Jerremy:

tariffs and blah, blah, blah.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Instead of, if I was in that exact role today,

Dave:

Which you

Jerremy:

I would say, yes, sir. I would say, listen, I feel you.

Jerremy:

I understand you.

Jerremy:

I have been there before.

Jerremy:

Here is the way you can afford housing.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Here's the path.

Jerremy:

Let's educate you on this.

Jerremy:

Here's the series of books.

Jerremy:

Here's some series of videos.

Jerremy:

Here's the series of of ideas and beliefs.

Jerremy:

It's okay to start in an apartment.

Jerremy:

That's perfectly normal, perfectly reasonable.

Jerremy:

Very common in the us And then while you're in this apartment,

Jerremy:

you save aggressively, you begin to invest, you cut down expenses.

Jerremy:

These are conversations that we just do not have anywhere right now.

Jerremy:

We don't have it in the office.

Jerremy:

We don't have, he's upgrading the ballroom and bro's not talking anything

Jerremy:

about housing and the cost of housing.

Dave:

there isn't, but there's nothing on housing.

Dave:

The

Jerremy:

No chat.

Dave:

If there's no discussion on it, then.

Dave:

Regardless of what the policy is or isn't, then you are effectively saying what the

Dave:

pains that you are feeling don't matter.

Dave:

because I'm gonna go work on, crypto, blah, blah, blah.

Dave:

It's okay, that's not helping like a young family start a family and afford a house.

Dave:

And look, I, my very first house that I afforded, I, man, me and my wife at

Dave:

the time, we scrimped, we saved, we had to borrow money from friends and family

Dave:

in order to figure out down payments.

Dave:

And within five years, we wouldn't have qualified for our house because

Dave:

we couldn't have afforded it.

Dave:

The price of the house kept on going up and up and up and up and within 10

Dave:

years, it was completely out of sight because of, again, the government

Dave:

was creating these loose standards.

Dave:

And that's how we got the 2008 crash.

Dave:

Because I'd bought my house in 96 then by 2008, like I, it was, the

Dave:

price of the house was insanity.

Dave:

And that was driven up by, by government programs.

Dave:

So like I hear you on yeah, there's ways to do it.

Dave:

Yeah.

Dave:

But there is no government policy right now that is that.

Dave:

Helping first time home buyers really get in the door and start that process.

Dave:

I was lucky because I was able to start at my twenties.

Dave:

Most people are not buying their first houses until their forties.

Dave:

That's a lot, like that's 20 years of

Jerremy:

missed out equity appreciation.

Dave:

wealth that, you don't got, like you're just dumping it into rent.

Dave:

I'm like

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

that freaks me out, dude.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

We,

Dave:

a 30 year mortgage.

Dave:

The whole idea of a 30 year mortgage

Dave:

A house in your thirties, right?

Dave:

And pay it off in 30 years so that when you retire at 65, you don't

Dave:

have a house payment anymore.

Dave:

30 year mortgage wasn't just pulled out of somebody's ass.

Dave:

That was the actual structural reason for a 30 year

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Dave:

go to most countries, like if you go to Turkey right now, they don't

Dave:

even know what a mortgage is like.

Dave:

Like

Jerremy:

most countries don't.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Most countries.

Dave:

For your place.

Dave:

That's it, right?

Dave:

There is no mortgage.

Dave:

If there is, it's a small mortgage.

Dave:

So I don't know, man.

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

But that's the same way.

Jerremy:

Mexico and those most countries don't have mortgages.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

to buy their houses in cash.

Jerremy:

And that's a very interesting.

Jerremy:

Way to approach it.

Jerremy:

It's not a capitalistic society necessarily, but

Dave:

But the price

Jerremy:

'cause

Dave:

would be less, I'm guessing, or

Jerremy:

the price of the house is less, but the people

Jerremy:

also make less money though.

Jerremy:

So it's a very interesting blend.

Jerremy:

But again, I do think it's a conversation that for a president to have and to

Jerremy:

speak on, or congressmen and women to speak on and start educating our.

Jerremy:

Twenties and thirties, our millennial millennials and

Jerremy:

Gen Zs and Gen Xs or whatever.

Jerremy:

Here's how you can buy a house.

Jerremy:

Here's the way it looks.

Jerremy:

There's ways to get a mortgage,

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Like subject to you can reclaim someone's current mortgage and

Jerremy:

be paying what they currently paid.

Jerremy:

You can do owner financing.

Jerremy:

There's all different ways to structure deals.

Jerremy:

There's so many different opportunities and or.

Jerremy:

Go buy something that's really inexpensive and live in it for a while.

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

are plenty of states, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Florida, Tennessee,

Jerremy:

Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas.

Jerremy:

Starting, but like you can go buy a house for 200,000.

Dave:

I hear you.

Dave:

But you also have to have the jobs.

Dave:

So

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

But you can afford a 200,000.

Dave:

co-located for a lot of jobs,

Jerremy:

but all the jobs are online now.

Jerremy:

There's 90, 90% of jobs can be online.

Jerremy:

Not all of them, but if,

Dave:

blown away by ai.

Dave:

So unless you're turning a wrench, forget it.

Jerremy:

Hey man.

Jerremy:

But that's the beauty of it though.

Jerremy:

The beauty of it is

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

we have someone that goes, this is an American value and American

Jerremy:

virtue, which is let's all figure it out.

Jerremy:

Have to all figure it out.

Jerremy:

We all have to go, all right, necessity is the mother of invention.

Jerremy:

If AI's gonna take your job, go find a job that you can create,

Dave:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

you can build, that you can source, that you can scale,

Jerremy:

that you can go and create income.

Jerremy:

'cause it's available, right?

Jerremy:

But that's just not a message that the young, the youth is hearing right

Jerremy:

now because that is very realistic.

Jerremy:

It's extremely doable anywhere in the country.

Jerremy:

You still have the ability to figure it out.

Jerremy:

It's a solution that can be solved for.

Dave:

Coming back to your favorite topic, education,

Jerremy:

Yeah.

Jerremy:

Come on dude.

Dave:

when we're talking about all these things with voters like I said I know I

Dave:

had a lot of civics, growing up, even in like grade school, that was a piece of it.

Dave:

Voting like there's bits and pieces of it, but, I don't know if that's anachronistic.

Dave:

I don't know if civics is even taught anymore.

Dave:

I have no idea.

Dave:

But What would you envision the education around voting or civic

Dave:

engagement or just being a part of your community, of your country?

Dave:

What would you like to see?

Dave:

What is it today and what would you like to change?

Jerremy:

Today it's very, again, just taking it from my

Jerremy:

15-year-old, it's very historical.

Jerremy:

It's very memorized, meaning here's who voted for the 19 19 10

Jerremy:

presidential race and here, right?

Jerremy:

So I was like, you're memorizing facts.

Jerremy:

It would be very useful.

Jerremy:

And again, I don't think it needs to happen until high school.

Jerremy:

In fact, I don't actually believe that a lot of the majority of what we're

Jerremy:

discussing in school needs to truly happen until high school like calculus.

Jerremy:

You can, I'm gonna go down that diatribe.

Jerremy:

I obviously know that education reform is gonna be the absolute number one

Jerremy:

thing that's gonna shift this country so fast, so quickly so exponentially.

Jerremy:

But from the voting piece, that's just a standardized class.

Jerremy:

That's something that is required in high schools, right?

Jerremy:

We just start it.

Jerremy:

When you are 15, 16, you're gonna start just learning about how

Jerremy:

this country works, how the voting works, and you're gonna have.

Jerremy:

Votes and you're gonna be casting ballots and you're gonna come up with reforms,

Jerremy:

you're gonna have discussions and it's just gonna be open because at that point

Jerremy:

you also have gone through school where you know how to con converse with people.

Jerremy:

You know how to actually have conversations longer than three

Jerremy:

seconds and saying hi, and then going right back to your phone.

Jerremy:

You know how to actually talk.

Jerremy:

You know how to be a human being because you've been a being right

Jerremy:

for the last five or six years as you have progressed throughout school.

Jerremy:

So that's gonna be a big change that needs to happen because again,

Jerremy:

a lot of people, the other reason they don't care is 'cause they're

Jerremy:

not informed, they're not educated.

Dave:

yeah.

Jerremy:

question I get the most on stage or when I do, presentations

Jerremy:

anywhere in the world, is why aren't we teaching this in school?

Jerremy:

Same thing in Australia.

Jerremy:

And here I am in Australia right now, it's 8:00 AM on Tuesday and I'm in the future.

Jerremy:

Yeah, I'm in the future and.

Jerremy:

It's the same down here.

Jerremy:

And my answer is always because they don't know.

Jerremy:

The teachers don't know.

Jerremy:

The board of directors don't know the people that are creating all the policies.

Jerremy:

They don't know how it works, so they're not gonna teach it 'cause they don't know.

Jerremy:

And it's not a conspiracy theory, it's just simply the education's not there.

Jerremy:

So I, yeah man, this is gonna be a big part of it.

Jerremy:

This is gonna be a absolute 100% inclusion into our key.

Jerremy:

Determining metrics of the education reform into schools and what

Jerremy:

we're having big, deep, powerful, meaningful conversations about

Dave:

So

Jerremy:

do you think it's Oh, good.

Dave:

in high school, did you have a student government or model UN or any

Dave:

of those sort of government, like I, had not only student government and Model un,

Dave:

we also had a requirement to graduate, which was some sort of community.

Dave:

Something like we, we had to

Jerremy:

Yeah,

Dave:

I

Jerremy:

that'd be so cool.

Dave:

In the community doing something.

Dave:

Some sort of volunteer work.

Jerremy:

Yeah, we, I had to do that.

Jerremy:

I had to do that for a scholarship.

Jerremy:

The community service thing and the voting or the, like the elections,

Jerremy:

whatever, was very flimsy.

Jerremy:

It wasn't.

Jerremy:

Really talked about anywhere.

Jerremy:

Again, there wasn't a process for it.

Jerremy:

Like you just walked around and people were like, you should vote for me.

Jerremy:

And I'm like, for what?

Jerremy:

What are you doing?

Jerremy:

And there was, there was no interaction with it.

Jerremy:

It wasn't this thing for people to be aware of and to educated by and to

Jerremy:

have conversations about and around.

Jerremy:

And I think that's something that could easily be shifted.

Jerremy:

Model you in.

Dave:

Right

Jerremy:

No.

Jerremy:

I didn't do anything.

Jerremy:

No.

Jerremy:

Nah, nothing about Model U in anywhere.

Dave:

in this whole voting thing.

Dave:

didn't talk about the things that affect the voting campaign finance,

Dave:

which I think is its own thing.

Dave:

The role of ai.

Dave:

We touched on it a little bit, like we're in this post reality, there's a

Dave:

ton of money flooding in you can buy your way to your par pardon these days,

Dave:

like it's gotten more pay to play.

Dave:

I appreciated that we just focused on voting on this.

Dave:

Granted, it was a little bit more difficult to program as our

Dave:

listeners can gather from like the seven weeks that we spent on this.

Dave:

Those things are like intrinsically linked, like campaign finance

Dave:

and ai and the rest of it.

Dave:

Do you think those are more important, less important as important?

Dave:

Not, i'm seeing them as yeah, those are, those might be more

Dave:

important than voting but maybe not.

Dave:

I don't know.

Jerremy:

I would love to explore them.

Jerremy:

I think these are definitely topics that we should dive deep into

Jerremy:

Figure out more and more how it's structured and how it works now and how

Jerremy:

much of an impact it really does have.

Jerremy:

And yeah, the campaign finance part is just, I cannot wait to buy.

Jerremy:

I cannot wait to bite into that apple.

Jerremy:

so what, so if I, if our guest had to vote on the next topic what topic

Jerremy:

or topics would they be voting on?

Dave:

Oh, we have heard your votes and we are going on guns and guns.

Jerremy:

Oh, shoot.

Jerremy:

We're talking gun control, dude.

Dave:

I wanna frame it a little bit differently.

Jerremy:

How are we framing it?

Dave:

I, so I've been spending the day like researching this because, I've,

Dave:

I don't know, I don't know much about guns and gun control and gun guns this,

Dave:

gun's that, But what was interesting that came up in the research my, AI research

Dave:

overlords, was that it was very much, centered on gun control and gun laws

Dave:

and like the definition, even though I'd said, and all the prompts, and what I

Dave:

really wanted was I wanted it nonpartisan.

Dave:

I wanted it, balanced and I want this, that, and the other.

Dave:

The very basic thing that it starts with is that more that gun, that guns are

Dave:

a problem and that they need to have more laws and controls and regulations

Dave:

in order to solve this problem.

Dave:

I'm like, okay I hear you.

Dave:

That's something I've heard most of my life anyways, but I also

Dave:

have heard from gun advocates saying that's a bunch of hooey.

Dave:

Like this is the most thing that we have in the United States and.

Dave:

We're not seeing any big differences here.

Dave:

Fair.

Dave:

So I actually started reading the research that I got back from all

Dave:

the ai, and this is what it said.

Dave:

It, it did all of the gun control, gun this gun that gun this.

Dave:

At the, in right in the middle of it, it said, oh, and by the way, of the

Dave:

quote unquote gun violence in the United States, are people using guns for suicide?

Dave:

I'm like,

Dave:

Huh,

Jerremy:

bro.

Jerremy:

That's crazy.

Dave:

and I'm like, okay, how much?

Dave:

58%. I'm like, what?

Dave:

So we have an enormous problem with guns in the United States,

Dave:

and the biggest thing is suicide.

Dave:

using

Jerremy:

Wow.

Dave:

So if you are a. If you are a man in the United States and you

Dave:

You are doing it with a gun and it is an epidemic.

Jerremy:

Wow.

Jerremy:

It's terrible.

Dave:

So that, that restarted my research into this because I, we

Dave:

can't on one hand say we need all of this legislation, we need all of

Dave:

these controls, we need all of these laws on one hand, and not one of them

Dave:

addresses what people are using guns for.

Jerremy:

Wow, dude.

Dave:

and that's where we started things.

Dave:

So that's our next our next topic is guns.

Dave:

We're gonna, we're gonna have a kickoff episode here, coming up next,

Dave:

but at the core of it, I want to just because it, people have very strong

Dave:

feelings about guns and I wanna tell everybody who's listening, I hear you.

Dave:

I. And I wanna think of this as not a pro-gun or anti-gun exploration.

Dave:

I want to focus this on being pro-human.

Dave:

That is going to be the difference that we are going to be taking on this on this

Dave:

journey of talking to advocates, talking to gun owners, talking to people who have

Dave:

been victims of gun violence, talking to legislators, talking to all the people

Dave:

in this discussion, we are gonna focus in on what's the right thing for humans,

Dave:

not what's, not bad guns or good guns, or good guys with good guns, or, all of

Dave:

those tropes and all of those things.

Dave:

And, more legislation, less legislation.

Dave:

We're gonna focus on really what's going on in America.

Jerremy:

I love that take because that's who I am.

Jerremy:

That's who you are.

Jerremy:

And that's why we are doing what we do, is because we understand that

Jerremy:

politics right now, and for a very long time has been extremely divisional.

Jerremy:

Although I do realize I'm not going to fix that entirely, I fully understand that.

Jerremy:

What I do realize is that too many people are saying yes or no.

Jerremy:

This is it.

Jerremy:

Yes or no, right Guns, no guns.

Jerremy:

Whoa.

Jerremy:

There's gotta be, there's gotta be something somewhere else

Jerremy:

that we can agree on that brings both parties together on it.

Jerremy:

And you saying.

Jerremy:

It's not guns or no guns, it's how do we keep humans alive longer?

Jerremy:

That's the direction that we're gonna go in, and I absolutely love it.

Jerremy:

We're gonna have really great conversations, and again, for all of our

Jerremy:

listeners, this is what I truly believe.

Jerremy:

Politics should be about.

Jerremy:

Two people, Dave and myself, from two totally different

Jerremy:

upbringings, two totally different.

Jerremy:

Very different ages, just really different, but having conversations

Jerremy:

and having disagreements, discussing why we disagree on things, coming

Jerremy:

up with informations, and then taking both of what we disagree on.

Jerremy:

And generally, we're gonna come up to some.

Jerremy:

Very reasonable conclusions that bring both of us closer together as friends,

Jerremy:

because I think that's what people can do when they have conversations.

Jerremy:

They can disagree with people, and still have really good insight on, wow,

Jerremy:

this is why this person feels this way.

Jerremy:

This is awesome.

Jerremy:

I'm so happy they think this way.

Jerremy:

Cool.

Jerremy:

And that part is actually really accurate.

Jerremy:

I really like that.

Jerremy:

I'm gonna take that into consideration further and I'm gonna live my life better

Jerremy:

because you gave me more information.

Jerremy:

That's what politics is, man.

Jerremy:

It shouldn't be this division of he's right, she's wrong, she's right.

Jerremy:

He, it shouldn't be that way.

Jerremy:

We have too much division, man.

Jerremy:

Again, I think that's also.

Jerremy:

Something that education solves and having our listeners go through this journey with

Jerremy:

us of not only listening but educating ourselves and themselves on these topics

Jerremy:

is gonna be truly mind blowing, and I cannot wait for everyone to tap into

Jerremy:

what Dave and I have on the dockets for you, for the pro-human discussion.

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About the Podcast

Solving America's Problems
Solving America’s Problems isn’t just a podcast—it’s a journey. Co-host Jerremy Newsome, a successful entrepreneur and educator, is pursuing his lifelong dream of running for president. Along the way, he and co-host Dave Conley bring together experts, advocates, and everyday Americans to explore the real, actionable solutions our country needs.

With dynamic formats—one-on-one interviews, panel discussions, and more—we cut through the noise of divisive rhetoric to uncover practical ideas that unite instead of divide. If you’re ready to think differently, act boldly, and join a movement for meaningful change, subscribe now.