SIO153: Blame the Green Party? Plus - An Interview with Steve Hill

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 153, I'm your host Thomas Smith, and today I have, uh, later on I have a brief interview with Comedian and State Senate, uh, in California, Candidate in 2016 and Satanist and Atheist, Steve Hill, I'm interviewing him as part of the California Free Thought Day promotion that I'm doing again this year because it's a really cool event and I'm happy to support it. Unfortunately, I can't go this year. It times out badly with something else that I already had committed to, but nonetheless, I'm happy to still do some promotion for them because it's a great event and you should go. It's a it's a cool thing. It's got cool people and And I'm going to be speaking with one of them just in a few minutes here, but I wanted to take a second to do a little bit of a little bit of commentary.

0:01:20 Thomas: I don't do it as much anymore, but There's a couple of things I want to talk about. First off, this is very simple. Yes, there probably is a tape of Trump using the N-word and no, it's not going to make any difference. So we all should prepare for the time. Fast forward to when the tape exists. We hear it. Although, side note, I think we probably don't you think we would have heard it by now? I think it probably does exist from the people who have said it does. I mean, Penn Jillette said he was there and I don't I don't think he would just make that up. But let's say it does exist. It is weird that it hasn't come out yet. I mean, it probably could be some legal reason or some whoever has custody of it is somebody that doesn't want to hurt Trump.

0:02:05 Thomas: I don't know. So I don't know why now, like even if we're hearing about it because of Omarosa, I don't know why that would mean it would come out. Would that make it maybe newsworthy and then change the legality of it? I don't know. But let's assume it does exist and it does come out. I think we can all be certain that it won't make it will make very little difference. Very little difference. I mean, as I saw one tweet that was very good, that was essentially, Hey, I have a audio tape of Trump calling Mexicans rapists. And it's like, yes, it's already out there. We already know who this guy is. It's all, it's, we know. If you don't know by now, you are incredibly stubborn because he's told us exactly who he is. And I think the people who support him are, for the most part, people who are very comfortable with who he is.

0:02:54 Thomas: I mean, the Access Hollywood tape made very little difference, you know, it made, it took a dent for a minute and then once every Republican realized, oh wait, there's, there can be no consequences, we can still just go along with this and it's fine and nothing happens, okay, we'll do that, and now that's been the option ever since, it's, it, you think there's going to be consequences and then Republicans in power realize they don't have to, the consequences are them. Now, that's the thing we didn't understand about institutions is institutions are humans and humans can say, oh, I just don't have to do this. I don't have to say that this is disqualifying. I don't have to bring about articles of impeachment if I don't want to because I'm a Republican and I want to hang on to power. And that's been the issue. I think it will be the issue if this tape ever comes out.

0:03:42 Thomas: I imagine, though, like, I could see an argument for the fact that Trump's approval rating has gone back and forth, you know, it's been as low as in the 30s and it's been as high as, you know, in the mid 40s or whatever. I could see there being an argument that a tape like this would tick that back down to just the hardcore supporters and you'd lose a few people who are Republicans but were a little uneasy about Trump. So who knows? I guess it could be the difference maker in that sense. But I just, all I want to say is in a previous world, we would have thought that something like this would move someone from a 50% approval rating to a 0% or a near zero approval rating.

0:04:28 Thomas: That's the world we thought we were living in three years ago. And we've come to find out we aren't living in that world. I think it'll move the needle very, very little. I also wanted to talk about Ohio 12. So I believe as of right now, we still don't have the final tally, but Best information I have right now is Balderson, the Republican, is up by, what are we at, 1,564 votes. So close. So close, guys. Voting matters. Voting matters. Every vote matters. Sure, you're one person, but could you affect dozens, hundreds of people? Could you affect a handful of people? Could you encourage a handful of people to vote if you lived in that district? And then maybe those people would encourage a handful more. You know, it's not unrealistic to think that we could make a difference.

0:05:16 Thomas: Each of us could make a difference when the margin is as small as 1,500 votes. It's tiny. But what I really wanted to talk about with this is, there actually was quite a bit, when these elections came back, it was even trending on Twitter, people were lashing out against the Green Party, because Green Party candidate Joe Manchik got 1,100 votes, and it's interesting, because on Opening Arguments, Andrew will make jokes about Jill Stein voters, and I think I've said a few things, maybe early on after 2016, I may have expressed some outrage at Jill, certain Jill Stein voters, but that's mainly because I had a debate with somebody on the show who said they were supporting Jill Stein because they believe in women or some crap, but really hated Hillary and had all the same Trumpian conspiracy theories about her.

0:06:09 Thomas: And so it was kind of more geared toward that. When we get right down to it, there's a lot of argument going on. I want to try to filter through some of it. The first thing is, I tend to, when I express a certain level of dismay at elections and the voters, the first thing I get back from an awful lot of people, it's a very bizarre thing, awful lot of people, even, and these aren't, you know, Trump voters, these are just liberal atheists as well, usually, is don't, we can't shame the voters, shaming voters doesn't work. It's weird, it's like a knee-jerk thing I get from a lot of people. People. And I can't help but think, like, okay, I'm just expressing myself on social media, and I do think non-voters are the key, but I'm not under some illusion that this is getting to them.

0:07:00 Thomas: Do—are we operating in a world where my tweets are getting to the non-voters in in Ohio's 12th district, uh, I mean, it might be different if I had bajillions of followers, but you know, I've got like 5,000 followers, maybe six on Twitter. It's not as how many of them could possibly live in Ohio's 12th district. You know, I'm just expressing a frustration with people who in this day and age, in the age we're living in, aren't voting. And so it's kind of one of those things where people are like, "Oh, don't do the nothing that you're doing," because it is not tweeting is nothing, tweeting doesn't do anything, and I and I don't think it does either, I'm that's why, you know, I'll tweet here and there when I'm frustrated, but that's more I'm expressing myself, and and people might get some, you know, some catharsis out of me expressing myself if they agree, or maybe they'll disagree and we could, we could argue about it, but I'm not under any sort of illusion that that's a direct, uh, of contribution to anything it tweet, it, it doesn't do anything.

0:07:59 Thomas: What really does stuff is volunteering, phone banking, knocking on doors, getting out the vote. That is what does stuff. So, arguing about like which version of nothing is the better version of nothing. Like, my version of nothing is, I can't believe people are not voting. It's very frustrating. Please vote. Like, too many people are not voting. Even in this day and age, these elections are the share, the share of people are voting is so small and it really, really shouldn't be. And yes, there are all kinds of ways that Republicans keep people from the ballots, of course, but there are also a ton of people who just don't vote, or they forgot, or maybe they're not quite enthused enough about Danny O'Connor himself, which in my mind makes absolutely no difference. So I'll express frustration, but that's nothing.

0:08:46 Thomas: And then there are people who argue back, "No, no, your version of nothing is bad. What you ought to do is shame the candidates," that's what the argument they make, it's the, it's the party, the Democratic Party, and the candidate, and what is so interesting to me is there was so much knee-jerk reaction to this election where people, like, people are tired of this same old thing, they're tired of the establishment, it's like, do you know anything about Danny O'Connor? Because I don't, I don't know anything about Danny O'Connor, and I don't think you do either, to be honest with you, Mr. Person I'm arguing with on Twitter, I'm pretty sure we both don't know anything about Danny O'Connor because he's just a no-name Democrat. And it occurred to me that, you know, I'm not speaking in absolutes, but there, it might be that, yes, there is a Democratic establishment.

0:09:34 Thomas: Sure, that exists. But now I'm thinking there's also kind of an anti-establishment establishment to the point where it doesn't really matter who the establishment is. There There are people who are just against the establishment for its own sake, you know, and that's also not good, just But the bottom line is neither Danny O'Connor nor a significant number of Ohio non-voters in the 12th district are on my Twitter account. There's just no statistical way that's true. So it's two versions of nothing. And it's just kind of weird that we're getting... I get a lot of policing of which version of nothing I should be doing. Should I be doing this version of Nothing or your version of NOTHING? They're both nothing. The truth is because we need to do things like sign up for swingleft.org or whatever, you know, and if that is if you support Democrats and if you think it's a moral baseline that Republicans ought to be voted out, that's what I think.

0:10:31 Thomas: I'm going to mention that in the future here in my interview in a minute, but I think that's a morale baseline. And we need, if you disagree, then we'd need to have that argument. But if you agree, then there is no argument. Whatever we can do to get people to vote for Democrats is a good thing. And me saying on my Twitter that I'm upset that people didn't vote, that's not changing anything one way or the other. So stop it. And then the other thing is this might be unpopular. I don't know. But I, for one, actually don't really care about these Green Party voters. You know, like some people, some people are trying to make arguments both ways. So here's here's some of the arguments. So one argument is, well, at least they're voting. Blame the non-voters. And then the other argument is, well, some of the non voters might be disenfranchised people, people who, you know, were, were erased from voter rolls or whatever it might be.

0:11:24 Thomas: Whereas these green party voters, they're at the polls. They're, they, they did all the things except the part where they wrote in a name or checkbox, the name that was going to make any difference. Uh, and so there's some frustration with green party people for that that reason. And first step is first. The Green Party votes, even if they all went to the Democrat, it wouldn't have been enough. I mean, it would have made it close.

So maybe these provisional ballots that are still outstanding, maybe that could swing the vote. But it's less than the difference between the two candidates right now. It's 1100 versus 1500. But also, and this is probably going to be insulting, and I mean it, it should be insulting, one of the reasons I don't, I'm not wasting too much time with Green Party voters, at least in the Ohio 12th, is A, I can't reach them as I've already established, but even if I could, honestly, if you, in this day and age, with what Trump and the Republicans are doing, and how much they're just ruining the country, if you still think the two parties are the same, you're kind of as lost as a Trump voter. In my opinion, I don't really, I don't, people are seeing the green party voters is like, well, they should be Democrats, but they're not.

And it's for me, it's like, if you're that misguided right now, in my opinion, if you're that misguided, you're just as gone as a, as a Trump voter, you know, like I honestly believe that. So we might as well talk about all the Trump voters who went or the, well, Balderson voters, sorry, Freudian slip, but it's kind of of one in the same, uh, all the Republican voters, the a hundred thousand Republican voters who voted for Troy Balderson.

0:13:03 Thomas: I mean, if you age right now, in this moment in history are still somebody who's going all the way to the polls and saying, "Well, I made the effort, I'm here," or mail and vote, whatever it is, and, uh, but no, still, Democrat and Republican, they're the same. If you're still there, you're as lost as a Republican voter. So that's why I just don't even I don't even care even if the Green Party voters were like 7 000 or 20 000 or, you know, you're not you're throwing away your vote, it is exactly the same, I tweeted this, it's people were saying it's a vote for this Green Party candidate is the same as a vote for Balderson, the Republican. And that's not true. I mean, just mathematically, that's not true, but it is the same as not voting. Mathematically, it's the same as not voting. And I always, people will come at me or online or whatever the argument is.

0:13:52 Thomas: Well, yeah, I'm allowed to vote for the candidate I want. So, you know, third party. And if everybody did that, then they would be elected. And the simple truth is that, you know, that's not going to happen. We have these things called polls, you know, like if if we were all going into the election blind and had no idea, well, then, I mean, you might have an argument that, OK, you just look at who you're going to vote. But when you go into the election and you know that the Green Party candidate has absolutely zero percent chance of winning and you still vote for them, you are doing nothing. You are throwing away your vote. This is what I always want to say to these people is, why don't you just write in your own name? Is it mathematically much different? You know, Joe Manchik got 1,100 votes.

0:14:39 Thomas: Notes, if I had written in my name, or if I was, a you know, in my, uh, teen years, if I was like 12 and I wrote in Michael Jordan or something, it's effectively the same. Like mathematically, it's very little difference. Like, my name, if I write in Thomas Smith, I have almost mathematically as much chance of winning as whoever the Green Party, uh, nut job is who believes in aliens and all this stuff. Anyway, so that's what I always say, and that, that doesn't just apply to the Green Party, that applies to anyone, especially upcoming in 2020 or whenever, who wants to vote third party and thinks like, "Well, if everybody did it, then it would be fine." Yeah, but everybody's not going to do it. You have the information, you know, in the poll, it's the same way that you know you have no chance, and the same way that I know I have no chance, or whoever, you know, Eli Bosnick has no chance, whoever we want to write in, we know they have no chance.

0:15:35 Thomas: So, So if you put that in your ballot, you are voting for nothing. You are voting for someone who has 0% chance. It doesn't do anything. It might make you feel good, but it's pointless. And if the polls show differently, it would be a different story. If you're going into an election and the polls show that there's three candidates who all have 33% support, well, that's 100% different scenario. Then vote for who you want. I'm not going to blame you. So anyway, sorry for the ranting, but I just saw a lot of really dumb arguments that I wanted to clarify. I'm not any more mad at Green Party candidates than I am at Republicans, or I'll put it another way. I am the same amount of mad at these Green Party voters as I am these Republican voters, and I think it would take just as much to convert them.

0:16:22 Thomas: I think pretty much. Well, I've already said it, but yeah, if in this day and age you think the parties are the same, or you think these two candidates will have the same effect, well then, then you're lost, in my opinion. And we can try to reach those people, but it still is true that the biggest wealth, the biggest reserve of potential Democrat voters are liberal-leaning people who stay home or don't vote or forget or just maybe need that extra nudge from a phone call, from a door knock, whatever it is. Those are the people we need to be trying to get because they are the ones who we could actually make a difference with. You know, we could spend X hours of our lives on certain people.

0:17:09 Thomas: Think of it that way. You've got 10 hours of volunteer time. Should you spend 10 hours on Twitter ranting? No. Should you spent 10 hours trying to argue with a Republican or a Green Party voter? I really don't think so. You should spend 10 horas phone banking or door knocking or doing whatever it takes that will actually maybe make a difference in the election. And that's what I believe. So you feel free to come at me if you disagree. But that's how I look at it. And we need to vote in November! Okay, now with that obligatory message aside, anyone who is volunteering, phone banking, doing all those things, swing left, whatever, there's some good organizations that I've checked out as well. You are the best. You are doing actual things.

0:17:55 Thomas: And also, same goes for people who are showing up and voting. You are the best. You are doing actual things if you're voting Democrat. If you're voting Green, you are not. You are doing nothing. Or if you're voting Republican, you're voting to harm the country, but other than that, that's where I stand, and now I've got to get to my interview with Steve Hill. Steve is an interesting guy. He has a ton of various experience. He worked as a corrections officer. Kind of funny, he worked for CDCR. I later worked in the budgets for CDCR for a few years. Not at the same time. He predates me a little bit, but I thought that was a funny coincidence. But Steve is an activist, he's an atheist, he's a Satanist, which is kind of funny. I take it for granted that people listening, for the most part, don't think of Satanists the same way ever since I did an interview with an actual Satanist.

0:18:45 Thomas: So if you're not familiar, go back and check that out. But Satanists actually have pretty good values. You know, it's not the cartoon version that you would think they are if you are like a Republican mom or something. Steve's also a comedian and he's also going to be the MC for California Free Thought Day, as I mentioned, so lots of stuff to talk to him about. Let's get over to it.

0:19:21 Thomas: I am joined by Steve Hill. Steve, how are you doing?

0:19:24 Steve: How's it? How's it going?

0:19:24 Thomas: Doing really well. I'm excited to talk to you. And we're talking in part because of California Free Thought Day. So you're going to be the MC for that. Is that correct?

0:19:33 Steve: Yes, I'll be the MC for California Free Thought Day. After performing there, I think I performed there a stand-up comedy two years ago. This time I'll be going back in MC capacity. Hopefully I will keep the day festive and entertaining.

0:19:48 Thomas: Awesome. Yeah, that's just the throw of the day. That's October 14th. Now, I went last year, so it sounds like I missed you because I just started going last year. But I went last year and I was going to go this year, but it turned out that there was a schedule conflict. So So unfortunately, I can't go, but I very much believe in the event and I like it. And I wanted to toss a little free advertising toward Free Thought Day because I think it's a great event. And I'm sad I can't be there, but I'm sure you guys will have a great time regardless.

0:20:21 Steve: Oh yeah, you know anytime Satan shows up, it's time to start the party.

0:20:27 Thomas: Excellent. So, uh, with that said, I would love to learn more about you and your story, because boy, you've got a lot of interesting experience and many different facets. But how did you come to this? Maybe we will start from the beginning. Um, I take it you are an atheist, right? How long have you been an atheist?

0:20:27 Steve: Oh, for sure. No doubt. Yeah, much since I can remember, I never really delved into thinking other than that whole story in the Bible was bullshit, you know, you know, even though when you're a kid, you want to try to try to, you please your, your mother, you know, in African American families is going to be the mother that, you insists that you go to church every Sunday. But, even after trying to, you know, just the real the realism in me, even as a young kid, it was so far fetched the story that somebody is coming back and everything's going to just sound like bullshit.

Shit, so I, I had to pretty much toss that early in my life, you know, which was good for me because it made me realize the seriousness of my situation, which was, you know, basically growing up poor and how to get out of from a realistic perspective, it's like, okay, let's, let's do this, you know, I know I didn't want to stay in that condition for any extended period of time. So So, you know, you grow up quick when you don't, when you can't have that crutch of religion to to fall back on, you that

0:20:49 Thomas: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:56 Steve: Hope to make you think, you know, I just use the hope of realism and the hope of getting an education and a hope of getting out of out of that environment. And I knew what I had to do. So, you know, I dealt with it from a realistic perspective from a very young age. So, yeah,

0:22:10 Thomas: Yeah. Sounds like it. So your BS detection abilities go back as basically as far as you can remember, huh?

0:22:17 Steve: Pretty much, pretty much, pretty

0:22:18 Thomas: Wow. How was it with your family when you, you know, did you kind of make it clear that you you weren't into this or how did that go?

0:22:20 Steve: Yeah, I think I made that clear a long time ago, you know, gradually. You don't want to shock black people too much. But, yeah, I think I made it pretty clear years ago, years ago.

0:22:37 Thomas: Yeah. Was it, was it, was it an issue with your family? Was it sour? Was it pretty?

0:22:42 Steve: My mother and I, we've had some contentious debates, you know, she's in her early 90s now, so it's like, okay, why bother? I'm not going to take that away from you at your age. Age.

0:22:54 Thomas: Right, right, right. Well, that's good. So it didn't, it didn't end any relationships or anything.

0:23:00 Steve: I got some I got some relatives I'm not too tight with.

0:23:04 Steve: You know, we don't call each other. They don't call me. I don't call them if I see them. You know, I'm I'm nice and cordial and all of that civic and civil. And but, you know, I don't think we go out of our way to like call up and see check in like normal family people. How are you doing? You know, what's going on? You're right. I haven't heard from you. But yeah, and I'm sure, you know, it's behind religion, but you learn to not really care about that very much.

0:23:33 Thomas: So it sounds like from what you're saying that, uh, it seems as though your view is that religion can kind of hold you back and can hold people back from maybe be facing the reality of their situation. Is that something you believe? You want to talk about that?

0:23:49 Steve: For sure, that's, you know, that's kind of why I do what I do. It's the fact that we are stuck in these hyper-segregated areas of the country, not thinking about, you know, how can we get out? You know, this system basically placed us in in these ghettos, which I always ask myself, you know, this is the richest nation on the planet, why do, why do we still have ghettos, is it because we still have black people, or will it, you will it somehow magically change once finds out that this whole church thing has been a scam and now we can figure out how to get out of this crap of

0:23:53 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:30 Thomas: Yeah, I don't know. You know, I just remembered you mentioned you just finished Color of Law, I think it's called. Is that the one? I mix up the name sometimes, but I've also read that book.

0:24:41 Steve: Law by Richard Rothstein, I'm reading that, and I'm doing research on several different books, because I'm getting ready to do a tour of Missouri, and I got a, you know, I'm a real estate professional, I've been appraising real estate since 2004, and that was a few years before the mortgage meltdown, so I've seen like this whole economy, this whole world economy, just get wrecked. And, uh, you know, a lot of African Americans were hurt by it the most because of course, in our communities we know the least about real estate and how it works and how it's all set up and, you know, how beneficial it could be as far as leveraging real estate to do things like start, start businesses and, uh, send your kids to college.

You no one tells us all of this stuff, the, the importance of maintaining proper maintenance on your house so that the level of conformity stays at a maximum, that way the value, you know, of such properties will be at maximum capacity. When you have conformity in a neighborhood, all the houses look nice, that's when you're going to to have home values at their highest. They don't tell us all, all about that. You, in the places that we live in, many people keep their, their, can afford to keep their homes maintained, not many people can afford to get out, I

0:24:43 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So you ran for the state senate in California, do you want to talk about that?

0:26:07 Steve: Because, I have basically ran as a black Satanist.

0:26:09 Thomas: I'm sure that that probably shocked some people.

0:26:09 Steve: Yeah. Man, I was, uh, I talked, to I talked a lot of people, oh,

0:26:18 Thomas: Are some of the, uh, I don't know, fundamental values that you, you ran on in your platform, oh?

0:26:24 Steve: I had Bernie Sanders, but basically that's who I was supporting at that, that time, and because I thought that he was telling the truth, he's one of the first candidates to come out talking about over incarceration, which I had a pretty much a front row seat to that, you know, working as a correctional officer, uh, yeah, you know, Bernie was just telling the truth. He's talking about income, you know, disparities and the, the wealth gap and the money, where the money is going to these corporations. And, and I was 100 percent behind him because he was just telling so much truth in his, state his platform. And I think that kind of helped, help, help me when I was running, also, because I made, you know, had a little bit of publicity behind it. I was on TMZ, did a story, Time, big time magazine, I was in there, several other places, I know I was on a info Wars because someone put my home address, yeah.

0:26:25 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Oh. Wow, that's

0:27:25 Steve: As I was a black Satanist running for office.

0:27:25 Thomas: Scary, I was gonna say You're pretty much their nightmare scenario, huh? Huh?

0:27:32 Steve: I'm just everything wrong on earth. It's a black man, a Satanist, a devil. Call 911 just to see me walking down the street.

0:27:34 Thomas: Yeah. Oh man. It's funny. Cause it's true. All

0:27:48 Steve: Yeah, yeah. That helped me, though, because people would go and Google me and look me up, and they see that I was a big Bernie supporter in real life at my website and all of that. And it actually, I'm sure, got me some votes. I think I got over 20,000 votes, that's not bad for this, yeah Yeah, so and I didn't come in last once again, so anytime you

0:28:04 Thomas: Right. Not too bad at all. Yeah. Hey, that's, that's all you can ask for. What do you think you, yeah, what do you, what do you think you learned and took from that experience?

0:28:14 Steve: Beat somebody, I just learned that this, this politics is, you know, I saw how it worked. I saw how the Democratic Party never contacted me, never, you know, never acknowledged my existence because I was running against the party's candidate, name you know, they never, after, after the primary was over, they, they never, like, came to me and like, "Hey, you, you want to, you know, you want to support our candidate?" Or like, those were votes that he probably could have used, you know, but they just, they would rather not have that, the atheist or secular vote because You know, I guess they reached some kind of point of diminishing returns, where they just, you know, discarded as no, we can do without it, because we don't want to lose any votes because, you know, the Democratic Party base is black people and you know they're like 90% religious.

0:28:35 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Yeah.

0:29:10 Steve: So they're caught up in a conundrum that kind of difficult for them. But yeah, I still didn't like that my treatment by the Democratic Party and I plan on switching it to go independent to the presidential election.

0:29:11 Thomas: Oh, that's interesting. Just in your, in your personal registration?

0:29:27 Steve: Yeah, Yeah, I'll be an independent voter rest of my life. The Democratic, the Democratic Party have kind of disenfranchised, kind of a disenchanted, I shall say, with with them. After what I saw them do to Bernie Sanders, that kind of pissed me off, that whole inside game. That's what I'm saying, politics is an inside game, it's all about money, and the sooner we can get money out of our political system, the sooner we'll, we will have anything near a democracy.

0:29:57 Thomas: Well, I'm, I don't know if I quite see the same way. I believe in Democrats. I don't think they're perfect, but I would say that I think Bernie had an incredible impact on the the Democratic Party, and I would, I, imagine I would bet on a lot of his platform and a lot of his message coming through with whoever wins the 2020 presidential primary, don't you think? Yeah.

0:30:20 Steve: Oh yeah, yeah, I, I liked that he was in the race just, just to make Hillary go to the left a little bit. I figured that that's what he would do, at least he would pull her over to the left, you know, and if she would have had any sense at all, she would have made, you know, Bernie her, her vice, vice presidential pick. I mean, that was, that was the most detrimental decision, I think, in in the 2016 election. Why wouldn't you put Bernie on the ticket, someone who's splitting the Democratic ticket? Why wouldn't you put him on the ticket? The people that didn't vote are the ones who elected Trump, basically, so

0:30:26 Thomas: Yeah.

0:30:57 Thomas: Yeah, I I agree with that.

0:31:00 Steve: Without putting Bernie on the ticket, how many of his supporters stayed home? Know the the Russians weren't the only ones fighting about it on Facebook, I saw tons and tons of fights. So I'm sure a lot of, a lot of those votes were lost, you know. I mean, I was smarter than that, I voted for Hillary because I know how math works, you know? And I didn't want Trump to be elected president.

0:31:22 Thomas: Well, I appreciate you saying that. That's one of the biggest arguments I have with people, even if they don't think that, you know, Hillary was perfect or they even dislike Hillary quite a bit. I'm glad you made the vote just because, uh, truly once you're at the end there, you get a choice, you know, the primary is, is the time to fight.

0:31:45 Steve: Yeah, you got a binary decision to make, you know? It's not three people anymore, it's a math problem. You got two people, you

0:31:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. I'm really, I'm really glad to hear you say that, because that's the message, especially with the the Supreme Court. I mean, it's just too important to be, to be messing with

0:32:01 Steve: Much at risk, too much at stake, you? And I wasn't happy with Hillary, by no stretch of the imagination. Her and Bill Clinton put more black people in prison than Richard Nixon. They had more prisons being built, more cops on the street, and those, a lot of those cops, that's where we have problems today. A lot of those cops weren't vetted, trust me, a lot of those cops came straight, yeah.

0:32:01 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah well I agree. I also, I have to say, I put a lot of the blame on Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in the 90s. They drove, they, they absolutely threw a wrench in Clinton's presidency. He started off progressive, and then they just, there was a Republican blood bath in Congress in '94, and then he couldn't really, he had to go centrist after that, yeah.

0:32:43 Steve: But, right, but you, you could just, like, you see Trump doing, and like you saw Bush did at the end of his presidency, you got, you got some executive powers there, especially you're in the, in the last state, your presidency, you could, you could do some stuff when

0:32:52 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Instead, Bill Clinton pardoned his what was his brother-in-law or something. Yeah. No, I agree. I'm not a Bill Clinton fan, but I don't blame Hillary for Bill also. But.

0:33:10 Steve: You, when, you know, she's making comments like "super predator" and things like that, that kind of lets you know that she's kind of close to the, to the White House. You when she had, hit you know, hillary care that means, come on, first ladies carry a little weight, yeah.

0:33:23 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, I feel like, uh, we probably should move beyond the Clintons, in any, in any case, don't you think? Yeah.

0:33:31 Steve: Yeah, let's, let's move on to Clinton's, let's talk about Trump, Trump supporters that's what's messing up the country right now, yeah, all we can do is look to the next election, so we know where that one's sitting at, and that's the midterm, so we get, get the House back, and so we can impeach Trump, how about that, how about segue back to Trump going

0:33:33 Thomas: Oh well true, well hey we we could not agree more, I, I totally agree, I'm glad, even though you, uh, are, are changing to independent, and uh, even though I, I understand sounds like the, the Democratic Party within California, in the state senate anyway, uh, didn't treat you well, but I'm, I'm glad we, we still can agree that voting Republicans out is, is a necessity, right, at this point it's a moral necessity, yeah, yeah.

0:34:16 Steve: To church Sunday morning, or not going to church Sunday morning, it's not an option, I know what I'm gonna do on that one, yeah.

0:34:22 Thomas: There's football on, so, So, oh,

0:34:25 Steve: That's messed up for a brother, because man, we can't, we ain't got football no more either, we got to protest, that, take a knee, can't even take a knee, can't even, can't even take a knee, you can't even protest in your own country, think about, think about trying to make, make black people do things that's really not in their best interest, you know, that, that song, that national anthem, that wasn't for us, how are you going to make me stand to some that wasn't even written for me, that wasn't for us, and that, that last line, opened land of the free," like, who's free, were you talking about when that song was written? We were slaves, they weren't even talking about us, and they're going to make us stand for that. Must be at your goddamn mind.

0:34:30 Thomas: Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, it's frustrating. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:35:07 Thomas: I could not agree more. That is fantastically said. And I wish the NFL would have a little more backbone with that. I'm kind of I can't believe I mean, I guess it's Jerry Jones's NFL, though. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:35:18 Steve: Capitalism, greed raises its ugly head and it stomps out humanity, any

0:35:23 Thomas: Yep. And the players, I mean, I, it's, it's so scary too, because they have such a short potential career that they don't want to jeopardize, you know, their chance to, to make money

0:35:35 Steve: Leadership, if they had any balls, any leadership, no pun intended, they could go start their own damn league, get black owners, who's gonna, who's gonna see a plan

0:35:42 Thomas: Or at the, at the very least they could all just kneel. Yeah. At the very least they could all just kneel. And then what are they going to do? Throw out everybody?

0:35:51 Steve: On Sunday exactly

0:35:58 Thomas: I don't, yeah. I wish they they would. I really don't understand that. I don't, it's weird, but yeah.

0:35:58 Steve: Exactly you know, everybody, I'm for myself, you know, it's everybody for itself, that's the whole problem with our ethnic group as a whole, we have no unity, we don't know when it's time to stick together, all this marching and yelling, man, money counts in America, of all those football players, all the, all of us just said no, you know what, we're going to sit out, but I was hoping, the last Super Bowl, I was hoping that they would just not come out for about five minutes, that'd be all it takes don't come out for about five minutes, and then go, now do you motherfuckers see who has the power here in this relationship, and then continue the game

0:36:31 Thomas: Oh yeah. I wish I, yeah, I, I absolutely wish that would happen. It would be amazing. Yeah. We'll play now. We'll play. Yeah, no. Yeah. I, I couldn't agree more. It's, it's, it's very frustrating and I cannot believe that, that, also in the end too, it's just a Trump distraction to, to, to make make people fight amongst themselves while he's, you colluding with Russians or doing what God knows what. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

0:37:07 Steve: Get those son of a bitches off the field all of that, you know, that's right to his base, that locking kids in cages at the border, wrapping them up in aluminum foil, all of that is for his base, I'm

0:37:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:37:21 Thomas: Yeah. Well, Steve, let's I think we're about out of time. Do you want to I can point people to Steve Hill comic dot com if you want to check out your website. And is there anywhere else you want to point people online?

0:37:34 Steve: Getting ready to do a GoFundMe campaign, it's to send Satan to St. Louis. You know, my nephew was murdered in St. Louis in February. Yeah, he was he was murdered gunned down, you know, like an animal. They got it on on tape, but a

0:37:44 Thomas: Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry to hear that, would, by the police or by somebody else, yeah.

0:37:56 Steve: Person in the neighborhood. Let's say people that black people are forced to live with when they're congested in these inner cities. It was, you know, a ghetto shooting, some kind of beef between two individuals, individuals. And yeah, so I'm going back to St. Louis, man. I'm going to try to teach my people about real estate, how it works, the criminal justice system. How do we get racist cops? You know, I'm going to be going back teaching, but mostly it'll be about real estate, how we got into these ghettos, how we can get out of these ghettos and, you know, try to teach people that maybe killing each other isn't the best thing we could be doing to get out of our current predicament, maybe we can stop going to church and giving these preachers all our money on Sundays, and uh, figure out a way how to get out of these ghettos, Satan

0:38:48 Thomas: That's a, that's a great message, I'm so sorry to hear that, I wasn't aware of that, uh, that, that's really sad, and I can't even imagine, um, so we'll point people to the website, and uh, look forward to that, that GoFundMe, and uh, wow, yeah, send send Satan to Saint Louis, got it, I will put the link in the show notes

0:39:03 Steve: To St. Louis yeah yeah yeah, it'll be, it'll be up in about two, three days, well

0:39:11 Thomas: Yeah, we'll look out for that. Hey, Steve, thanks so much and And good luck. That's a lot of really good and difficult work you're doing. Best wishes to you. And keep up the good work.

0:39:23 Steve: Thank you, Mr. Thomas Smith, thanks, thanks for having me on, and uh, looking forward to California Free Thought Day, where I will be the MC, and uh, you have a good trip, wish you could have been there for, for a day, but as

0:39:37 Thomas: I know, it's unfortunate. I really wish I could do both things. It was kind of, I didn't know they were on the same day. And I committed to two things. And, you know, I, yeah.

0:39:46 Steve: A comedian, it happens, I know, sure

0:39:48 Thomas: Yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah, but that will be awesome. And anyone should go, anyone in the area. It's a great event. And like I said, that Free Thought Day will be October 14th is the main event this year. So you can see Steve and lots of other people, some of whom I'm sure you'll hear on the show coming up. So Steve, thanks again. Best wishes. And we'll talk again sometime.

0:40:10 Steve: Good, good time, man, talk to you later.

0:40:27 Thomas: Alright, thanks so much to Steve Hill, and wow, we kind of talked about this after recording a little bit. Steve lamented the fact that he kind of didn't bring up his nephew's shooting until the end there. It's something we could have spent more time on, but the way the schedule is going and the recording time, we were out of time, so that was kind of unfortunate, but I do encourage people to check out that GoFundMe. He said it's going to launch in a few days, because that's horrifying. A really awful story. Steve told me more off mic very briefly, but his nephew had been threatened before and his nephew went to the police about the shooter and about what would later be the shooter, and the police didn't help him. And then he, a few months later, was killed by those very people.

0:41:14 Thomas: Uh, it's very horrifying. It's just another one of the many stories of being black in America and having been put into, as he covered, as Steve talked about, put into through various, systemic uh, tools over the years being put into ghettos and put into areas with, with, you know, intense poverty, bad schools and all that. It's another one of the many costs of that systemic racism over the years. So very, very sad stuff. But I do want to thank Steve for coming on and talking and giving us some insight into his life and his work. And I also want to say, check him out at California Free Thought Day and check out the event in general in October.

0:42:00 Thomas: It's going to be a great thing. And with that said, I will see everyone next week. Thank you so much for listening.