On this episode of Talking With People, I sit down with my good friend Paul and discuss the current state of America, our culture, and the upcoming election. Paul is a dual citizen living in the United States and Steven is a German-American living in Germany.
00:00:17.000A German and a Jew walk into the same public square.
00:00:19.000I know, it sounds like the start of a corny and probably racist World War II joke.
00:00:25.000This is actually the background story of this latest installment of Talking With People.
00:00:32.000It's hard to think of two people who would most likely have different viewpoints than these two.
00:00:37.000But the more I do this, I find that's the interesting thing about the United States today.
00:00:42.000Conventional wisdom or preconceived notions don't always apply.
00:00:47.000Making snap judgments or assumptions of someone's individual beliefs or political opinions based off of their immutable characteristics doesn't really work anymore.
00:00:57.000And that's certainly on display with these two people as I discussed the current state of America, our culture, and the upcoming election.
00:03:16.000Anyway, I don't want to make this about abortion.
00:03:19.000So would you say that's the biggest misconception maybe people in Germany have about the United States?
00:03:22.000Yeah, and maybe the people in the United States are also about Europe or Central Europe, although Europe is a lot of different countries that are very different in terms of laws and all that, and societies, but I would say that's a big misconception because the U.S.
00:03:38.000is usually ahead on a lot of social issues like gay marriage, for example, was first legal in the U.S.
00:04:23.000I wouldn't vote for Biden for a host of issues.
00:04:27.000The first thing is, I mean, he's very old.
00:04:30.000And then there's the whole, and I mean Trump is old too, but Trump still got it together.
00:04:34.000Let's be honest, there's different kinds of old.
00:04:36.000There's different kinds of old, sure, so I wouldn't discriminate just based on the age of Biden, but if you hear him talking, he has some bright moments where he's coherent, but there are a lot of incoherent moments, and I don't feel this country should be represented by someone being 83, 84 at some point.
00:04:58.000And then the second thing is I don't like Kamala Harris at all.
00:05:03.000I don't want her to be the president, which would be a very likely scenario with a 82, 83 year old Joe Biden.
00:05:11.000And when you're talking about him dying or something, I'm talking about him not being capable anymore and people finally... It's a statistical, I mean, I wouldn't say likelihood, but a very real possibility for sure.
00:05:21.000Right, so there's the matter of his age.
00:05:46.000For example, his college Student loan forgiveness.
00:05:51.000Thank you, student loan forgiveness, which is insane.
00:05:53.000I mean, I don't mind if they would change the student, the college system, because they're spending a lot of money for advertising, charging a lot of money, so this is getting out of hand.
00:06:03.000So I don't mind if he would pass laws to dampen that spiral of let's spend more money to get more money from our students down or help out... Hold on, don't move.
00:07:25.000Yeah, so I mean, as I said, I don't mind if he damps that down a little bit.
00:07:33.000But on the other hand, just throwing out money for people who already signed a contract to get into debt, although I don't like the system around it.
00:07:42.000But I think that's also a step in the wrong direction, given the 32 trillion in government debt right now, which is a problem for future generations.
00:07:53.000Then the other thing is the border issue.
00:07:55.000Although I realize it's an election year and a conservative talking point, but I also see this as a big problem, not just the amount of people that are coming in, but the unchecked amount of people coming in.
00:08:10.000So, I mean, do we know if there are some Hamas fighters coming in?
00:08:44.000As I said I don't live in Germany anymore so I can't really and I haven't really looked into all these issues so I have a hard time commenting on that but people aren't... I mean some throw their passports away so no there's no checking or verification in terms of criminal background because there are probably no records of who they are.
00:09:07.000but it's more organized in a sense that these people get government handouts.
00:09:36.000So you basically walk into Germany, you get recognized as a refugee and you get $800 plus 200, I think it's 250 a month per child right now.
00:10:09.000Because people walk into Germany and I mean they are, and this is getting very political, like there are a lot of controversial topic, right, as here, but they're walking through a lot of safe countries essentially to end up in Germany or other Like Central European or Northern countries that have a lot of welfare or benefits.
00:10:30.000And that's how a lot of people see it and that's also a problem because I don't think that the current younger more left-leaning, I would outright say socialistic tending generation of people in Germany They would want open borders.
00:10:49.000They would want a better, bigger social system, so more welfare.
00:10:55.000The four-day week with full salary and all that, it doesn't really fit together.
00:11:34.000So that's why I also have some skepticism about the social welfare state.
00:11:39.000I don't think they can afford it for a long time and I mean you have universal health care and all that.
00:11:45.000It's one thing that some Americans who I see as also uneducated being from an academic spectrum saying okay they have free health care and it's true to
00:11:57.000some extent that it's on a social level I mean the manager the CEO pays the same
00:12:03.000if he has a knee surgery like the poor person I mean that's the same here
00:12:09.000essentially but you don't have to it's free basically if you don't have money
00:12:16.000I was raised in Canada where we do have a socialized health care system and of course it's since collapsed and they've had to open it to private hospitals as they call them in the States.
00:12:24.000Well they call them in Canada super hospitals now and here they would just be known as hospitals.
00:12:28.000So I grew up there in Quebec with that and yeah the quality of care in Canada was not very good and you still had to pay for 70% of the medications you wanted.
00:12:35.000So I think a lot of Americans think it's hold up a government card and you don't pay for
00:12:39.000anything and that's not necessarily how it works.
00:12:41.000I wanted to go back though, so you said for sure not Biden, but then you mentioned immigration,
00:12:46.000these issues that obviously if you look at the polls, people tend to believe that one
00:12:49.000of the candidates would handle better.
00:12:52.000What is it that still has you on the fence, for example, if definitely not Biden but you're
00:12:59.000So I'm pondering if I had to vote right now, I would probably vote to vote as a statistical protest for either RFK, although I haven't looked into his personality, he's still not going to win anyway.
00:13:11.000Or the Libertarian Party as a statistical protest, which it doesn't help, I know, but although I'm here in the state of Texas, the same as the state of California where I lived before, it doesn't really matter if you vote or not because it's Trump is going to be in here.
00:14:16.000Because also it's like the media there is basically like CNN.
00:14:21.000So it's like your whole... So it sucks?
00:14:24.000Yeah, so it's, yeah, what, probably, maybe, yeah.
00:14:27.000So, well, I think if you want to be really informed, you have to watch both Fox and CNN and all the other media that are either more like on the conservative or on the liberal spectrum.
00:14:38.000But the German media, there's the problem that most of them, there are some conservative media for sure, but they don't really care about the Right.
00:14:46.000American issues that much. So they tend to focus more on the conservative local
00:14:51.000topics. Right. But they wouldn't really report the conservative side of the US
00:14:56.000that much. Sure. I mean there are some conservative media who do that but the
00:14:59.000the main media what the public media like NPR. Right. But it's just a bigger
00:15:05.000thing in Germany. It's like Canada we have the CBC. Right.
00:15:08.000So they would they would just report from a democratic CNN perspective. Right.
00:15:14.000So just like as an ordinary German, you would only see the CNN perspective of American politics.
00:15:21.000That's one of the reasons why they hate Trump.
00:15:24.000Probably most people hate Trump or are disgusted by him or whatever you want to phrase it.
00:15:31.000Um, so anyhow, um, I think he would be slightly better for the country than Joe Biden.
00:15:38.000But just slightly, but I'm not really sure if I can get myself over myself to vote for him.
00:15:45.000You say slightly, but what we see is a pretty stark contrast.
00:15:48.000Let's kind of take COVID out because that sort of was an anomaly, but the first three years of Donald Trump, Versus what you've seen with Biden economically.
00:15:55.000I mean, the border issue you mentioned, you know, 1.9 million crossings under Trump's tenure with Biden.
00:16:06.000I mean, that's a huge change right now.
00:16:09.000Like that's that's a I would say a stark contrast, not slight.
00:16:13.000If the immigration issue is an issue, would that be something that if you kind of spend more time on, you think could maybe veer you one direction?
00:16:57.000I'm a truck driver in Germany and it's like, yeah, great, I mean, they're looking for truck drivers here, as an example, but you won't get a visa, so you can never be a truck driver here unless you win the green card lottery, which has a 1 to 50 chance or something.
00:17:10.000So, yeah, I mean, That is a conundrum, right, that you cannot legally, if you have good intentions, want to work, you cannot legally or it's very difficult to legally immigrate to the U.S.
00:17:22.000but then on the other hand people are just walking across the border.
00:17:39.000You just show up here, you talk about free healthcare, you just show up to an emergency room, don't pay the bill, there's no way to track you.
00:17:46.000Same thing with social safety nets here, you have people who benefit from those.
00:17:49.000You know, we talk with a lot of people here on the street, and that's a big... In America, here's the thing, I'm sure you've noticed this, if someone says, hey, we have a problem with illegal immigration, they say, and by they I mean the left and a lot of Europe, that's racist.
00:17:59.000Right, and Americans are afraid to speak out.
00:18:01.000Yeah, that term is so overused that you cannot even say something like, okay, 36% of the population commit 50% of the murders, then you're immediately a racist, but it's just a fact.
00:18:14.000So, yeah, but that's the same in Germany.
00:18:22.000If you are not for open borders, which I think is insane from a security but also a society perspective.
00:18:30.000One other thing speaking of that probably people would also say since I just said the 30.6% that I'm a racist possibly but one difference in the whole immigration thing is also that what I see here why I don't see this as problematic as in Central Europe is that you have people from a Rather Christian background.
00:18:53.000I'm not religious, but on the other hand, culturally, people from Mexico or Venezuela, they, I would dare to say, fit more into the American society.
00:19:03.000They have rather conservative social values and it's not such a culture clash at work.
00:19:10.000That's what we're seeing in Germany and Central Europe.
00:19:13.000A lot of people come from Islamic countries and don't share the same values.
00:19:19.000I mean, there are moderate people, but I don't know how far we want to get with this.
00:19:23.000Probably don't want to go that far because we're on an open street and if you say too much they blow stuff up.
00:19:27.000But that's one other social issue that is more...
00:19:34.000Well look, the thing is, my perspective is, you have the right, as a country, to say these are our values, and it's fine if you come from a country that doesn't share those values, for example, women, their right to drive, you know, for example, or the way they view civil rights, right?
00:19:48.000That's not the same in the Islamic world.
00:19:50.000They can stay there and preserve those cultures, but Germany has a right to say that's not how we do it here.
00:19:54.000The problem is the guilt that is often, you know, your brow beaten with, and in the States, You're seeing that change with immigration.
00:20:00.000A lot of people were... I mean, we've interviewed a couple of Hispanic Americans, and I've seen it's a problem.
00:20:05.000And I have family, you know, who came here from Mexico.
00:20:08.000A big shift that I've noticed, where I think, like you said, it's so overused that people just say, OK, let's talk about the numbers.
00:20:14.000And I'm hoping that that at least carries into the election.
00:20:17.000So I know you're undecided, but I appreciate your rational approach to it.
00:20:21.000And this... One more time for your... What's the channel?
00:20:23.000Der Stadtbewohner translates to The Urbanite or The City Dweller.
00:23:09.000I thought you were going to say, because the only white people we interviewed so far were like, we want to make sure abortion is still a thing.
00:23:14.000I was like, oh, I bet you that was coming over.
00:24:04.000But I think it's what's trendy and what's I want to go to the weaponization of the DOJ because that's a big one for me.
00:24:12.000Do you think that maybe this is shifting a little bit as far as younger Jewish women, considering what we've seen across the country with the protests, the pro-Hamas protests, and what's been happening with Israel and Gaza?
00:24:23.000Yeah, which is absolutely horrifying, and I hope so.
00:24:27.000I mean, I guess I would hope that people are waking up a little bit about these dangers of this kind of woke left ideology.
00:24:58.000But the one issue that sort of opened his mind was that he said that he started realizing his family in Israel.
00:25:03.000And he started realizing that the stories that he was hearing about what was going on in Israel from the media and what you actually hear on the ground, what's going on in the world, are completely different.
00:25:11.000And if they're lying to you about something like Israel and making you feel something for a terrorist organization that rapes women and kills babies, I can't imagine what else you're being lied to about.
00:25:53.000He knew that three days after the hospital announced that they were going to stop performing gender-affirming care on minors in response to potential investigations by the state of Texas, They implanted a hormone-blocking device in an 11-year-old girl, which would essentially render her infertile and cause a whole host of health problems that would leave her chained to the hospital for the rest of her life.
00:26:13.000So we started realizing, you know, from people that he talked to, from documents that he was seeing, that this was going on.
00:26:18.000And so he anonymously blew the whistle to a journalist, Christopher Rufo, for those of your viewers who know who he is.
00:26:25.000And so he, you know, everything was completely redacted, reviewed by many attorneys.
00:26:29.000But he wanted the public to know what was going on and so he published that story anonymously in May of 2023 and it actually helped sway some votes to ban gender-affirming care on minors in the state of Texas.
00:26:41.000The vote on that bill was a couple days later.
00:26:45.000A month later, day of his residency graduation, two HHS-OIG armed agents showed up at our apartment, and he's been under criminal federal investigation ever since.
00:27:22.000I mean, I think, you know, there's that.
00:27:23.000I think I was just trying to point out that there's this tendency when you're young to do the thing that's cool and that seems, you know, sympathetic to the victim.
00:27:32.000And I think that's where some of this is coming from, social media.
00:27:35.000And I think as you sort of start to learn more, have these personal experiences, you know, have certain issues that, you know, hopefully for a lot of Jewish people, Israel will be one of them.
00:28:02.000No, and I think it's important, you know, for example, you'll get, and as someone who
00:28:07.000obviously supports Israel's right to defend itself wholeheartedly and right to exist,
00:28:11.000I still don't think our tax dollars should be going to Israel.
00:28:14.000I think that they should have the right to defend themselves.
00:28:17.000And morally, of course, we support them, but I'm always a little bit nervous when I see one side throwing out, whether it's racism from the left or anti-Semitism from people on the right, saying, if you don't support this bill, it's anti-Semitic.
00:28:27.000I don't think it's anti-Semitic to hold a position that execute every last member of Hamas until every hostage is freed, but you don't need to do it with our dollar because you're your own nation.
00:28:41.000So I think we get into this issue of trying to distinguish what I think is a very legitimate cause, personally Israel, from Ukraine, which I don't support funding for at all.
00:28:53.000It could be a legitimate cause, but it doesn't require billions and billions of U.S.
00:28:57.000It doesn't require billions and billions of United States money.
00:29:03.000Are you seeing, one thing that we've noticed today too is we've seen, we've interviewed
00:29:06.000some people who were Hispanic and some black Americans here too who did say, you know,
00:29:33.000Trump had a rally the other day of 100,000 people in New Jersey, so I hope that some of those are Democrats who are changing their minds.
00:29:40.000Why do you think, when we look at the numbers, it's interesting that some polls have, for example, Donald Trump winning the Hispanic vote, certainly closing that gap, you know, a huge amount in the last four years, and gaining, for example, with black votes quite a bit.
00:29:51.000The one area where he's not is white women.
00:30:21.000And the only demographic, at least last year when these polls were taken, the only demographic that supported biological males competing in women's sports as a majority was white American females.
00:30:30.000You didn't even see it with Hispanic females.
00:30:32.000You didn't see it with, I think it was pretty evenly split with black females depending on the poll, but certainly not white males and no males of any race.
00:30:39.000Exclusively white females, white liberal females, well white females as a whole, supported biological men and women's sports.
00:30:56.000I can't even imagine, especially, you know, I'm having a baby in a few months, so I cannot even imagine wanting her to compete against biological men in sports.
00:31:08.000What do your female friends say when you talk with them about this?
00:31:10.000You know, a lot of my female friends don't agree with me.
00:31:14.000You know, I think I think others just want to be nice.
00:31:21.000I think my liberal female friends think that it's the nice thing to do to use the pronouns, to give them the health care, to allow men and women sports.
00:31:33.000I think that's what it ultimately comes down to, is that they think theirs is the nice, humane position, and everyone else is a transphobe, which is absolutely ludicrous to me.
00:32:20.000So imagine, take that, and if you were to add another 4 years, that could fundamentally change states if you just have no voter ID forever.
00:33:03.000And certainly, like I said, I was telling you a little bit about my husband's story, speaking out, getting that story out, having people understand what's going on, has definitely been a priority for us.
00:33:12.000So I can certainly talk about it more.
00:33:29.000It turns out that you may gain some new perspective as well as provide some for other people out there regardless of the chasm that you think may exist between you both politically.
00:33:41.000There really is a lot of good that can come from just getting out there and talking with people.
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