Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed Policy Director for the American Principles Project Jon Schweppe to the newsmaker line to talk about the organization and its efforts to save the American family from left-wing authoritarianism.Â
Leahy: We are joined now on our newsmaker line by Jon Schweppe, the policy director for American Principles Project, on the web at americanprinciplesproject.org. Good morning, Jon.
Schweppe: Hey, good morning. How’s it going?
Leahy: Good. So your organization has been around since 2009, and you described yourselves as a very worthy cause, the premier defender of the American family and the public policy arena. Do I have that right?
Schweppe: Yes. That’s correct. And we’ve really, in the last few years, grown on the political side. Back in 2009, we did a lot of think-tank stuff, a lot of research, and we decided it was really important to have a group that acted as the political cavalry for the family that was willing to go out there and help out the good guys and punish the bad guys. And we’ve been able to build that. And this year, we’re going to spend $10 million on the 2022 midterms.
Leahy: I think that’s a very worthwhile activity. So let’s take a look at this. The American family is clearly under attack. We only have about 10 minutes in this interview.
I was going to ask you who’s behind these attacks, but I don’t think you could cover that list in 10 minutes. Just give us the highlight of who’s attacking the American family and why.
Schweppe: Sure. Well, to be honest, to summarize it, there are a lot of different folks doing it. But overall, it’s a far-left-wing project. I’d argue it’s a Marxist project.
And the goal here is pretty simple – to concentrate power in the state and to concentrate power in left-wing institutions. Breaking down the family is actually a critical aspect of that.
And when you divide the family, which is the strongest institution in human society, when you do all this, you’re able to basically break down anything that could resist the power of a far-left authoritarian movement.
And so that’s basically the breakdown of why they’re doing it. I don’t think every individual left-wing activist is necessarily conscious of that, but that’s the overall goal of the movement, and that’s why we’ve got to fight against it because in America, we believe in freedom, we believe in liberty, and we have to protect those things.
Leahy: But there’s huge money behind all these left-wing efforts to destroy the family.
Schweppe: Yes. When you look at the foundations, when you look at billionaires like George Soros and some of these other folks, this is their project. And their project is to radically, fundamentally change what this country is all about. And I think we saw a lot of that start under President Obama, but it’s really hastened since then.
And now we’re talking about – which, I mean, it’s kind of crazy, but we’re talking about sex changes for kids, which is something I don’t even think we had talked about 20 years ago, 10 years ago.
Leahy: Ten years ago. I mean, it’s totally out of control. And the Left wants to basically encourage – well, in public schools, they appear to be grooming children for all sorts of sexual behavior, sexualizing them. And they’re promoting and encouraging transgenderism, and mutilating surgery, and hormones that ruin kids.
We have an instance here at Vanderbilt University. They’ve got a center, and we’ve just got a story up today about them doing that. Now you’re going to use $10 million to influence the midterms. Where are you focusing that money?
Schweppe: We’re looking at the swing states, the battleground states. Basically Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, some of these Senate races, some of these governor’s races. And we want to make sure that we’re going in there and making a difference.
Part of it, which really helps, by the way, is when some of these candidates are strong on these issues already. So I’ll give you an example. In Arizona, we’re running ads right now talking about how Senator Kelly supports sex changes for kids and would support legislation that would promote that, and actually make that the only option for parents.
And Blake Masters, the Senate candidate in Arizona, is out there talking about the same issue, right? And so it’s not just us coming in with our little ad campaign and then you don’t hear anything from the Republican.
You actually have a Republican running on the issue. And I think that’s what we hope to see all across the country. And we’re going to see if we can add states. We’re a little less than 50 days out, but we’ve had wonderful contributions from small-dollar donors, from large donors, and we’re going to try to make as big of an impact as we possibly can.
Leahy: Let’s talk about that Arizona Senate race. For a while, it looked like Mark Kelly was going to take a large lead or several-point lead into the November 8th election, but I saw a poll from the Trafalgar Group just recently that shows Kelly has 46.6 percent. And Blake Masters, the Republican, has 45.4 percent. It’s a 1.2 percent difference within the poll’s 2.9 percent margin of error.
How much of that change, and the surge for Blake Masters there, is the result of the reaction to President Biden’s September 1st hyper-partisan speech attacking Republicans as a threat to democracy? Kelly’s 94 percent with Biden. How much of that has to do with the kind of advertisements you’re doing to point out Kelly’s support of transgenderism?
Schweppe: I’m sure all of these things contribute. I think President Biden’s speech did more to rile up the Republican base than anything else. But I’ll tell you, with our advertisements the people that we focus on, we focus on soft Democrats and independents who move on these issues.
I think people forget this, and I think it’s important for especially your Republican conservative listeners to understand this. Most Democrats are pretty normal, actually, right? It’s the far-left activists who are the crazies, who want to do all these things to our kids.
But most normal Democrat voters vote for them because, hey, maybe they think that they are the party that cares more about the working class, or whatever reason they’ll give you.
And so when you talk to them about some of these cultural issues and you show them what Democrats support showing your kids in schools, they move. They move quickly. And that’s what we try to do here, is basically show people just how radical the party is.
And so I think what’s happening in Arizona is Masters is running a strong campaign. He’s talking about these cultural issues in addition to inflation and all these other things. And I think that’s ultimately going to reward him. And I think the Arizona voters will pick him.
Leahy: Let me push back on your assertion that most Democrat voters are normal. And here’s the evidence. After Joe Biden’s speech poll the Trafalgar Group released said among Democrat voters, 70 percent said that that speech was acceptable political dialogue.
Of course, 90 percent of Republicans said it was beyond the pale and 64 percent of independents agreed with that. Your reaction?
Schweppe: Yes, you might be right. Maybe I should say some.
Leahy: (Laughs) I’m with you. But the majority of independents are clearly normal people as well.
Schweppe: This is a worrisome thing. And this is why I think another reason why we have to push back against the far left here is that this is a movement that is no longer liberal. And I think that’s the disappointing thing.
I think we’d all wish we could go back to our normal politics of 20 years ago where the big debates were over healthcare policy and tax policy, but that’s not where we are. This is an actual authoritarian left-wing movement.
It resembles some of the historical, oppressive regimes of the past – I hate to say it. And so we have to be very cognizant of that. And I think when you’re seeing a left-wing movement, we work on Big Tech issues at the American Principles Project.
You’re seeing a left-wing movement that actually supports suppression of speech. They don’t want you to be able to say anything online that disagrees with the regime on anything. Even when you turn out to be right. Like on all the stuff with COVID, and then you turn out to be correct.
So I think it’s really important that voters need to put true Republicans to save America, because America is not going to look like America if these guys make changes.
Leahy: And they are moving at a rapid pace to destroy America.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
