Live from Music Row Tuesday 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 Brent Hamachek, Manager of Human Events Media Group, in the studio to give his opinion on the midterm elections and the reporting content of Human Events and The Post Millenial.
Leahy: In the studio, our good friend, the manager of Human Events Media Group, Brent Hamachek. Brent, the 5:00 hour is a little different than the 6:00 hour and the 7:00 hour.
We have a kind of a morning crew here, people like you and me who get up early, get their coffee made, and prepare for the day while the rest of the world is sleeping.
That’s our morning crew. And we structure the program so that if anybody wants to call in, we typically take calls from the morning crew in the 5:00 hour.
We don’t do it so much in the 6:00 hour or 7:00 hour. That’s a little bit more programmed, but it depends on what’s on their mind. Our number here is 615-737-9522. You want to talk big-picture?
Hamachek: Talking big-picture is always fun. By the way, getting up this early is common for me, and I feel like I’m in Europe with the cup of coffee you’ve served me, because it’s about as strong as it gets. I’m loving every sip.
Leahy: That’s good because that’s the only way I can make coffee at this time in the morning. I did make a very strong cup of coffee. Most of our listeners are drinking a strong cup of coffee as well, because they got to get up and they got to go to work and they got to get things done.
You and I grew up in an era when people believed in American exceptionalism. Now, I suppose you might say, since the election of Barack Obama back in 2008, there have been nonstop attacks on American exceptionalism.
And what we do here at The Tennessee Star, on the web at tennesseestar.com, and our extended Star News Network, and what you do at Human Events and at Post Millennial is to report accurately and honestly on the significant news of the day.
Three weeks from today, we have midterm elections. What are your thoughts? What have your writers been writing at Human Events and Post Millennial about the midterm elections?
Hamachek: Well, first thought on American exceptionalism. American exceptionalism – I guess I need another sip of coffee – being under attack, mostly it’s been under attack by American behavior. Because America hasn’t been behaving quite exceptionally for quite a long time.
Whether you look at our foreign policy or whether you look at our domestic policy, the choices we’ve made in both areas lead you to believe that we’re anything sort of but exceptional anymore.
We’re a little bit more dependent, a little bit more co-dependent, and not behaving like a nation that is leading on the world stage or leading in terms of strong individual obligation and liberty.
Leahy: You’re talking about our political leadership.
Hamachek: I’m talking about our political leadership, but we’re too quick to blame our political leaders because we elect them.
Leahy: You believe in human agency, it would appear – the need for thereof.
Hamachek: The fact that you reap what you sow and you get what you vote for. It’s always quite difficult to say there’s a disconnect between our political leaders and the people because the people continue to vote for them. So I think, physician, heal thyself; voter, heal thyself, before we blame the politicians, we’ve got to look in the mirror.
Leahy: So let’s take a look at, we’re looking at the mirror. We’ve got three weeks until, again – the term that I use – we will be at the nadir of our constitutional republic three weeks from today. And then when the polls close, we’ll start the slow, steady climb back, probably in the House of Representatives.
It looks like we’re going to take back the House of Representatives. And when I say we, I mean the Republicans, may take back the Senate. Your thoughts on where we stand three weeks out of the midterm elections?
Hamachek: My perspective on everything is usually a little bit darker than most people’s. I have that reputation. Here are a few thoughts on what’s coming up in the midterms. Certainly, the Republicans need to take one of the two, simply to stop the legislative process.
So it’s critical to do that. So we can throw a monkey wrench into the idea of any additional laws being passed for the next two years if we can take one of them.
Leahy: See, no more laws passed will stop the bleeding, if you will.
Hamacheck: Right. It’ll stop part of it, because what we’ll see is that if they do take one of the two chambers, then we’ll see a flurry of executive orders, really much along the lines of what Trump did when he lost the ability to have legislation his last two years.
But my real concern is the fear of winning both. And the reason I’m afraid of winning both is that I am afraid that citizens who place far too much store in election results will say, there, we took the House and the Senate. Look what we did.
They’ll kind of wipe their hands and say, we’re all done. We’re all set. And Mike, we’ve got ourselves into this spot over the past century, not over the past couple of years. And this is a much longer game, and it’s much bigger than just elections.
So, Republicans got to take one of two just to stop the legislative bleeding. But people need to realize that no matter what happens in November, there is a lot of work left to do, a lot of sacrifices to be made to try to reverse the course.
Leahy: That makes an awful lot of sense. When you do your daily editorial budget, the stories that will run at Human Events, the stories that will run on Post Millennial, how does your team go about selecting which stories you’re going to hit?
Hamachek: Well, from the Post Millennial side, again, they’re very focused, and very much are leaders in fighting back in this cultural war. In particular, with regard to the transgender issues and the excesses in that world in terms of surgeries on children and parents’ rights being denied and those kinds of things.
So they’re breaking a lot of stories. They’re reporting on the things that don’t get reported on elsewhere. And at Human Events, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to bring in writers that both have good followings so that people listen to them, and writers that have very good ideas so that people might find them.
And we’re trying to structure arguments that people can both understand and internalize and then can go out and share with others. So we’re trying to inform, and we’re also trying to get people to think.
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.
Photo “Brent Hamachek” by Brent Hamachek.
