A Regular Guy Is Running for Congress? - The St. Louis Podcast: Episode #158

Tommy Holstein had 48 hours to decide whether to run for Missouri's third congressional district. He filed. Now he's on the ballot August 4th.

No PAC money. No corporate donors. No political experience. Just a guy in his 30s who got fed up watching Renee Good and Alex Prey get killed and decided someone had to do something about it.

Eric and Tommy talk about Medicare for all, data centers, Amendment 4 and 5, Citizens United, the AI bubble, why the stock market is fake, and why work from home might be making the loneliness crisis worse.

If you're in Missouri's third congressional district, vote August 4th.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

All right. Welcome back to the St. Louis Podcast. As always, my name is Eric Brown. We have the one and only Tommy Holstein with us here today, running for the third congressional district of Missouri next week. August 4th is the primary. Um, of course, early voting has already started. If you haven't early voted yet, make sure you get out on August 4th. And hopefully, through this video today, if you've not heard of Tommy, uh, you'll go out and support him. Um, at this time, as you guys know, if you've listened to this podcast before, if this is your first time, uh, it's been a it's been a theme over the last year and a half to really talk about how people uh our age feel about the system um in its entirety. So uh, you know, I'm excited to have Tommy here today. So uh without ado, Tommy, tell me. I just saw a couple months ago. You're like, I'm running for third congressional district, and I was like, holy shit. All right, so tell me, I know it was a quick story. It was like what, two days left, and someone was like, do it, and you're like, all right, I guess I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yep, that's exactly what happened. I um so I have never been involved in politics before. I saw myself getting increasingly mad, upset, angry, pissed off at everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

Um, and specifically when uh when Renee Good and Alex Preddy were killed, that that was kind of like the catalyst to make me like jump into things. Yep. Um, I can tell the longer story if if you'd like later, but um I saw that happening. I had the idea to run. I was like, uh basically I was like, what is the what is the most that I could do right now to to help or contribute? Because I have a lot of like I have a variety of skills and I could contribute in different ways. I could protest, I could organize, I could um like run comms for people, I could do, I could do a bunch of different things. Um and but when Alex Pretty was killed, three weeks after Renee Good, yeah, that I was like, nah, something drastic needs to happen. And so I had the idea to run for Congress. Um I don't really, I don't really know many people, or at least I didn't before I decided to run, that were like in politics, like like inside of it. And so I called a friend who owns a consultant firm and I was like, yo, I'm thinking of doing this. What would this actually take? And he was like, Well, here's kind of what the job is and what you would do in office, but you should know that the deadline to file is in less than 48 hours. And so if you're serious about this, you should really do some thinking like tonight. Um, and at that at that point, I wasn't even considering running this cycle. I I I had my sights set on 28. I was like, okay, what what what are the next two years gonna look like and I'll build up there, whatever. But when he said that, it just I was like, this opportunity is in my lap, it's what I'm asking for. Yep. So okay. I and and I and I I've told people this uh on a couple different interviews. I had this like vision of like a potential future where we needed one more vote, one more seat to pass Medicare for all, yeah, or not go to war or do some sort of good in the world somewhere. And if I were to have had all these thoughts and feelings, made the ask, found out that I could do it, and then I had chose not to, and then that like reality came to pass, I would have thought about that the rest of my life. Yeah. Like, what if I just did it? Yep. Um and the more I thought about it, or like since I filed, I was I've realized like if I had that been a week, I probably would have thought myself out of it, but I didn't have time to. I was like, I've gotta go now, or it's never, like it is now or never. Um yeah, that's the that's how I got into it.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

I you it's it's interesting because we were, you know, um, I was having this discussion with some other people, I think last week about, and it was all a bunch of like 30 to like 35 year olds, and pretty much everyone said the same thing in common theme of we need to they pretty much everyone's on board with Medicare, something for all because the simple the bottom line is like you look at a paycheck, how much of that paycheck is already going to health care just through you know Medicare and Medicaid, right? And then obviously, you know, hopefully you you have health insurance, which is a a huge other issue that a lot of people, of course, don't have. And hopefully you work for a company that offers that. And then of course, you either pay for it or your company pays for it or whatever, you know, you guys split the cost, but of course, that only gives you essentially the membership to get in. It doesn't actually cover any of the costs.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

You're still paying an obscene amount every time you have to go do anything. Yeah, we still like even if you're insured, you could be like, Yeah, I need an ambulance, but how much is that gonna cost?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

But that's a crazy thought to have. It's like, well, I guess I'm gonna hit my deductible for this year five, ten thousand dollars or whatever it is. You know, insurance works-ish if you have money. That's about it. Um, other than that, you know, you and I think it goes back to I've talked, I forgot what doctor I had on, and we were talking about why is it so expensive? Well, it's expensive because of course the insurance companies work directly with like Mercy or whatever. And they can set a number that doesn't make any sense you walking in the door to pay, but because they're working together, make as much money as possible, right? Then an MRI that should be 500 bucks is now, you know, $5,000. But if you say I don't have insurance and try and just offer them cash, like, oh, the cash price is different.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

I it we have these layers of bureaucracy that do not need to be there. Yeah, like we just don't need them. Every other country's figured this out already. Yep. And we purposely do not figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

100%. I mean, the pharmaceutical companies make an absolute shitload of money uh because prescription drugs are insanely expensive. Uh that's you know, that's always one thing. It's like I I talked on the podcast and I did research like last year. It was like Medicare for all would actually supposedly save us money.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Yes, yeah. And and I don't know the exact number, but um it was like off the top of my head.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

It was, I believe, six, it was hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. I want to say it was billions of dollars. It was a ton of money.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

And it was simply I you know, I forget the reasoning why I should have gone back and and looked at my notes from that episode. Um, but just by doing Medicare for all would immediately save everyone money.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, it's it's so it's become so clear today that um I mean, we live in a capitalist society. We that but it's become so clear today that Oh, it's apparently communist, Tommy. Right, right. Um absurd. I can't believe I'm living in Red Scare 3 and I'm like in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Where do like where where did this? I I know we just got distracted. Where did that even come from? I it literally, someone was like a month ago was like, I know the next thing we need to have is like, let's just start calling them all socialists and communists. It's like, right, oh, because it's like a majority of our society has a ton of those principles. We pay into police, firefighters, uh, water, you know, a majority of the stuff we all pay into. Um, it's not like fend for yourselves and build your, you know, hopefully you can connect to wherever the sewers are and hopefully it all works out. A lot of this stuff is is already set up, but for some reason, it al it's always communist when when it's us. Yes, when it benefits us. But um communism really is the tariff thing, which we were just talking about. It's it's like communism for the rich and fuck the poor. Yeah. So data centers are the same way. Like we're gonna, yes, we're subsidizing them. Like correct, correct. Data centers. So talking about data centers, obviously, who you're going against, um, that's any man. Now, the notes I have here are that she is not anti-technology development and not even necessarily anti-data center. She proposes an independent AI commission to set guardrails and frameworks. Uh, she also said Missouri has an energy generation problem. We do not have a data storage problem yet. But she's not she did not come out against data centers. Right. Yeah. I um she was like walking a fine line and not really having like it's so easy to say, well, we need some sort of commission to run it. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

But then what does that actually Right? What does that look like? Um and you know, there's plenty of things that I've like said that like is gonna be in my platform and I'm still crafting my sure like what what exact policies are you gonna do for um infrastructure? And I'm right. Well, I have like some things I care about and like some ideals, and I'm still kind of finding those things. Um, but you know, here's what I care about. And so when talking about data centers, I yes, I would like I I think that's a great idea to have some sort of AI um like nonpartisan uh committee that oversees it and and and all of that, but we need people in there who understand it, who are not um bought by AI companies. I mean, that it would be really easy. It's impossible though.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

They make up uh yeah, I think those the 10 stocks make up like 40% of the the uh NASDAQ right now. You know, Oracle, Google, Microsoft, 10%. 10 companies make up like 30%. Oh shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

30%. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

It's it's an insane number. And of course, those are you know the data centers, and they've made, you know, everyone's like, oh, the stock market and the economy are so good. If you look at the gains, they're all in those same 10 stocks. Do you know how to hear that when you're struggling? That's what all the boomers say. I literally, yesterday on the pocket, literally a clip went out, and everyone was like, Your grocery bill does not is not the economy. And I said, That's more of the economy than the stock market. Because the stock market is fake, and we could talk about that. I mean, in the like 70s or 80s, or even in the 60s, the earnings to price ratio was like five to 10x. Now it's 30x. And where and where is all of that gone, all that money? I mean, the guys that own all the stocks, hedge funds, and you know, the point zero zero one percent pretty much. Right. And if you look at that, if you ever look at that graph of how the wealth is distributed, everyone thinks it goes like like this, right? Right. No, it goes and then skyrocks.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

The people, I mean, consistently, this is uh, I don't even know what to call this. Uh there's a pattern in if you rank anything, like like anybody who let's take like mile time. Um, I hope I'm giving an example where this is true, but anybody who is like in first place for a thing, right, is usually well above second place, like dramatically above second place. Um let's say like video games. Yep. Uh anybody who is like the top speed runner for a video game, they're gonna probably be minutes ahead of or like like the ratio between significant things, yeah, way different than second and third. Yep. And that's absolutely the case when it comes to where all of the money is in our in our society. And I think that we have kind of just gotten to a place where it feels like that's the right way to do things because it's just a thing that we know. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

But we were like kind of grown up to like cheer on wealth, definitely, for sure. And I think it, you know, it kind of broke, at least in my braid, when I saw everyone like cheering on a trillionaire, Elon Musk, who I honestly most entrepreneurs and people used to love Elon. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:26

Like he was a big Elon guy for sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Like I would say the majority of us were, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Um, and we were all in that, like, you know, we we all watched Gary Vee and uh like like we were in that ecosystem.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

But I think I also don't think he was as big as a piece of shit anywhere compared to now. It's been a whole power grab. You know, 10 years ago, he kind of just was like the e the uh I mean evil genius now, it seems like, but he was kind of just like that that weird dude that was like building rockets and making EV cars. Yeah, but really it's turned out that he might be, and I say this when people get very mad, one of the best grifters of all time. Uh the SpaceX stock thing is hilarious to me. I don't know if you've saw it. No, I don't just cratered. So the IP, so I've been telling everyone, I said, don't buy SpaceX because you're gonna in an IPO you get locked in for 30 days. Well, it came out at 150, it's now down to like 110. And of course, all of the banks, you know, all of the funds that were responsible for selling it made a shitload of money. But everyone that bought it, a you know, retail investors, you know, normal people buying the stock, you know, lost billions.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

They're finding every conceivable way. They the the elite class are finding every conceivable way to extract wealth, to take money from our pockets. Yeah, any way they can. And doing it with a smile on their face. A hundred percent in our faces.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

100%. I think tariffs is you know, tariffs is one of those, obviously. There's there's just there's so many, and like these these AI companies that are worth a shitload of money, all because, you know, if you invest in just index funds, right, which the normal person does, a lot of that money is going to those 10 companies. So we're just fueling this thing that, in my opinion, you know, the people have talked about like the AI bubble. Um, well, what you know, a story I talked about last week is that a lot of these companies are high hiding billions of dollars of debt building these data centers through special acquisition comp or uh SPVs, special purpose vehicles. So they're they're hiding a lot of his debt. And the news story just broke, like uh, you know, Meta and all of these and all of these companies are in massive debt. It's like, you know, and then in order to pay for the debt, are Claude and people using AI. It's like the revenue generated from those is never going to pay off all this debt for the data centers. So then my question becomes what are these data centers really for?

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Oh, yeah. That's that's a conversation we've got to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Listen, it's not it's not for me to go on Claude and or go on Google Gemini and say, who has the most, you know, what's the most successful or what's the best plumbing company I should give me three plumbing companies I should have come to my house and give me a quote. No, that's that's not what these are being built for.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

Yeah, because right now we have that infrastructure.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

Correct. We already can use the chat box.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

Correct. So why do we need all of these other ones? Exactly. Um and anytime any of these people get on a mic, like, did you watch the um I watched the interview with it was Tucker Carlson and Mr. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Um I only saw Mr. Wonderful get flame for about two minutes. That was it.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

It was pretty much the whole, yeah, the whole thing. Um and you know, I've I never like I haven't followed Tucker Carlson very long, but like seeing him like like speak up against that was really powerful. And the way that he was able to like get some of these responses from him, it's so clear that like what is his name, Mr. Wonderful? I cannot.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Kevin O'Leary. Thank you. They live in a different universe, they live in a different world, dude. Um they don't understand why we don't want it.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

They know, yeah. They literally don't understand. Um quick sidebar.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Kevin O'Leary sucks, but yeah, he does. But he wears two watches. He was great in uh in what was it? Oh my god, that movie, the ping pong movie. I just saw this in theaters. Why can't I think of there's a ping pong?

SPEAKER_00 16:35

The only ping pong movie I know is Balls of Fury.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

No, it was it was with uh it was with Chalamet. Uh his name. I don't know. Put it right here. But he was good. He was so good in it. Yeah, it was good. I mean that. He was good. Um bad for society, yeah. Good for Hollywood. Yes, yeah. Anyway, um, but he clearly just just does not care about anything that we're concerned about. No. When he's challenged on him, he like he would like get angry or get it. It was so clear he was defensive and like just think about all the future possibilities. And he'd be like, Well, okay, yeah, can you like what does that future look like to you? And a lot of the response was, you know, we have no idea what it's gonna look like. And I I see a lot of a big easy talking point is like, well, think about the industrial revolution. Yeah, people were against that then. The Luddites did this and this, and then and all they were making stuff that we wanted and needed. Yes, we uh yeah, we also good manufacturers. One of these one like the general public um may have wanted that.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

And and there were certainly manufacturing should come back. Like, if you have you looked at videos of the Rust Belt at all, not really no just abandoned towns and cities left and right, the whole the whole rust belt from all manufacturing just leaving, and you know, a plant dies, the town dies, everyone leaves. Yeah, it destroys the community, yeah. Um but that was the 80s.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

I actually had a conversation there about a bit like larger corporations, conglomerates, kind of like just like when they eat up small business, uh like the market there, it'll destroy a whole community, a whole town. Um ADD brain. I'm gonna go back real quick to say Kevin O'Leary, yeah, data centers.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Um, I'll I'll say one thing. Say yeah, please. So about the data centers, like everyone's like the pollution, electric electricity cost, yes, a hundred percent. Yeah, but that's not I feel like that's like almost the smaller picture. The bigger picture is the open AI, Sam Altman has openly said that he wants to take people's jobs. It it is a world statement where we just have data centers running shit and we're all just like, what are we supposed to do now? Yeah, I fucking no one wants that. I don't. Yeah, I don't.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

And and all this is coming from someone who is like I was an early adopter of AI. Yeah. When AI was released, uh it I like, or I'm sorry, when it was released, when Chat GPT launched. Yes. As soon as that launched, I think it was like two weeks after it was out, is when I caught wind of it. I sent a link to everyone I knew and was like, hey, this is about to change the world. Get on this. Any business owner I knew, I was like, figure out how to incorporate this in your business. Yep. Figure it out. Let's go. And there was a lot of like positives. And and I'll I, as someone who wants to regulate the industry, yeah, I try to stay as updated as I can or um up to date as I can because I want to do this smart. Um so I was an early adopter and I've used it from the beginning, and over time my enthusiasm for it waned dramatically. I as a creative, as an artist, it um I'm a filmmaker by trade or a videographer, uh video marketing, video production, and all that. But you know, when I first started using AI in that creative process, I would I would run experiments. I was like, okay, why don't I try writing a script with AI? And I'm gonna make a video that is tailored to the script. And I would do it, and it was a great video. And then and it looked really good, and people were like, wow, this was great, man. And I felt empty and hollow. Yep. It did not have any of my soul or like thumbprint on it, and it felt it's a similar feeling to um I used to tell people, like like artists or creatives, to like, hey, follow your passion, follow your follow your dreams, go.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

It's like cheating. You know what I mean? Oh yes, you kind of feel like you cheated. Like I you I took the test online and I just copied, you know, I copied the question into Google, I got the answer and I put it back in. And how there's no like fulfillment.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

How how rewarding is it when you have to build a skill and then you finally accomplish something that you've like wanted to do forever, or that you you see a market a marketed improvement in your in your video skills or or whatever. That's being ripped away from people now. And it's so easy to be like, well, they could just not use it.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Sure. Um, but what we've done is uh turned everyone into addicts, yes, and our drug of choice is at arm's length at all times. And that is not a a fair thing to say. Yep. A certain point it is not just like, well, it's their own personal responsibility. Right. Awesome. Well, I think that uh we need to re-evaluate what that means.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

That's how gambling got passed, and that's how I mean I you know, gambling is like one thing I'm like, it's stupid to do, you lose money, and it's it's it's a tax on the poor, which I've explained. People don't like hearing it because they want their freedom, and I get it. But also then you look at the WNBA players just got caught betting on games on like Poly Market and these Call Shi, which is those I don't know first of all, those should be illegal. They are gambling websites. Fuck Calci and Poly Market. Um just all insider trading and and the people that know making all the money. It's it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

And you're absolutely right. It is a tax on the poor. Um, I haven't really thought about it in those terms, but you're totally right. And and especially those apps, Calci and uh what's the other one? Polymarket. Not that I want to platform them, but but they uh they want to get 18-year-olds addicted to gambling. It reminds me of like we used to like you and I probably had did you have a computer room or like a place where the computer was?

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Yes, yeah. Family computer, yep.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Yeah. And when you walked away from that, that was it. Well, I've been to the casino twice and I've realized like gambling is really not my thing. If I downloaded Cal shear polymarket onto my phone, I haven't. But what if I did and then became like, oh, I'm like into this? It's a thing I can do at everyone. Everywhere, yes, yeah, wherever I am. Yep. On the toilet, I'm placing bets on who's gonna get bombed overseas.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Like it's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

It is immoral, insane. Yeah, name an adjective, it's probably that. If it's a negative adjective, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Yep. All right, so no to data centers. Or I shouldn't say no, but we we need a I actually I feel like we have enough, as it is, to do what we need to do. But of course, they want mass adaptation, yeah, and obviously they're gonna the government's gonna use these. Listen, mass surveillance, everyone's like, what does that even mean? It's like mass surveillance means like they know everything about you. Google now connects, you know, they know your shopping habits, flock cameras is tracking absolutely everywhere that you go.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Oh, dude, I I I say this, any family gathering I'm at, if this gets brought up, people um have this same conversation I've seen everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Oh my gosh, yeah. We were talking about these flip-flops, and then they just popped up on my phone.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Microphones always going. But it's even deeper than that. Like 100%.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

It's that is like that's so minimal compared to what it actually is. Correct. Because it can predict your next movement, the next thing. Like it is to that level. And I don't think the general public understands that. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Yeah. And it's and I understand it, but it's it's collecting so much data.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

It's insane.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

So I was in um, I'm not a particularly religious person. I grew up Catholic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

But um feel like a lot of us did. Yeah. Same.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

I I've since kind of walked away, but um, most of my family is is Catholic.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

I just think Catholicism is it's tough to swallow. It's got a lot of I had a hard time. The history is kind of tough, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

I had a hard time specifically with um we don't have to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

We can. I mean, it's just like whatever at this point.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Hey, give me on the next podcast. It's religion and uh we're doing politics this one, we'll do religion next.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

It just seems like religion is even like the a lot of the big ones that are like you know, just Christian. It's uh there's always an agenda. It's like, why can't it just be a community thing?

SPEAKER_02 25:48

I think uh we'll save, we'll save this for the next podcast.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

So I wanted to talk about um uh let's talk about the amendments real quick. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Oh yeah, maybe a hard stop, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Yeah, we we got some time though. So amendment four. Now, how how I've had this explained to me, and I think uh some good representation or some good photos have been put out online. Um, it seems like essentially what's gonna happen is now when something goes to pass or be shot down, instead of it just being a majority vote of the people of the state of Missouri, now it's going to be broken up into the congressional districts, right? And if one congressional district says no, that means it does not pass throughout the whole entire state. And that that one congressional district can be 49 to 51 percent. So like it could be not that many votes for the entirety of the state. It would I don't understand it, besides the fact that it just seems like an easy way to be like if something is gonna get pushed through that we want to kill, this is gonna be easy as hell to kill.

SPEAKER_02 26:57

It a really good thing to or easy thing to point to is like abortion access. Yeah. And so we Missouri voted for that through a ballot initiative, and um they're trying to overturn that right now with amendment um three in November. Okay. Uh that's not on the primary election, but it'll be in the general election, is amendment three. Um, so we can talk about that after the play.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

I think it should be illegal to have amendments on primary ballots. It might help me. So that's true. For for today, I'm uh I'm in favor. That's true. I think it might help me. But it's it's odd. It's an odd thing to do.

SPEAKER_02 27:32

What's standard? I don't know that I've uh voted in many primaries.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

That's what I'm saying. Okay. So that's what I that's exactly my point. So there it it seems like they're putting it on this just to get it through.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

All of it is connected and strategic and in different ways.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Um But the Republicans are very not even I like I said kind of before the podcast, the major a lot of Republicans I see that have been Republican their whole life are against four and five. It's only the Republican party and the people that are uh quote unquote establishment, whatever, obviously all have the same talking points and they're all four and five. And then I laugh because on any social platform they're getting ratioed to hell. Right. People don't want it.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

And I I've I've noticed that in because I've spent a lot of my time in this in this primary, like around like the establishment, uh local Democrats, like near where I'm in. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's it's kind of the same on I mean it is the same on both sides. Like we've they have each party has like what they are meant to push, and that's very clear, and it has been for a lot of people, but I think more so today than ever, it's very clear that that's just how this all works. Yeah, and you're right, like I was at the Missouri Farm Bureau. Um, I gave a short stump speech there. Some several weeks.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

They're pro four and five. They are, they've been posting it everywhere, definitely. And their people are like, why is an insurance company getting involved? Because I know a lot of people in St. Louis that have Missouri Farm Bureau, and it's it's not like all their people are you know out in wherever in on a farm, you know what I mean? It seems like they're trying to placate to like so I uh saw this this woman.

SPEAKER_02 29:28

I was I was going to my car, and there uh was another, I think it was somebody who was currently current sitting rep in the statehouse. Um and he said hi to me. I shook his hand and we were gonna leave. And then a woman came up to us and she was asking him because he had spoken in favor of amendment five specifically. I think and she was like, Can you just like uh can you explain to me like what why you're voting in favor of that again? And it the way that he like he was like, Okay, so like the way that I like to to explain this to people, and like the way he prefaced it and the way he explained it, it was it was it was very it seemed like he was just like reciting the points that it was given. Yes, and um and she was she was not receptive to it at all. She was like, you know, I think I disagree with you. Um thank you for your time. I think I really disagree with what you're saying here. Yeah, and it was and he was just like, okay, yeah, that's all I which like cool, but I don't think he believed what he was saying.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

No, you could tell, yeah, you could tell of when these when some of these people are talking about it that they're just whoever is behind it is paid to do it. Now, not to be a conspiracy guy, and I should, I wish I would have had these notes pulled up, but the guy, the richest man in Missouri, is responsible for a lot of these amendments and also getting Governor Kehoe elected.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Really? What's his name?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Um billionaire. Hold on, it's literally a simple Google search. Responsible. Forgetting Kehoe elected.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

I think I might have seen a headline like that when I was scrolling once.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Rex Rex Sinkfield. He is uh a retired investor and mega donor. Sinkfield?

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Like S-I-N-Q-U-E Field.

unknown 31:32

Q E field.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

He has the American Dream Pack, an independent expenditure committee supporting Keho that was able to accept unlimited large dollar donations. Calling it the American Dream Pack is a unlimited large dollar donations. He poured millions.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Uh for the record, we are a grassroots campaign and we do not accept any corporate pack money or uh uh a special interest or yada yada yada yada.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

So did Bob Under get any uh APAC money?

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Yeah. I don't know, I don't know exactly how much, but um Bob Under APAC money.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

You know what's funny is the it just kind of sidebar. A the APAC, they've gotten a lot of heat, but there are other I I would almost say more powerful packs, such as the pharmaceutical industry and healthcare.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

I think those two are more powerful than APAC, but of course, because everyone is so pissed about the straight of four moose situation, right? Israel's getting a ton of flack, which they should. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Um, we're like slaves to Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a war criminal.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

Yeah, we're like slaves to Israel, which doesn't make any sense. And if you like I've been, I don't know what's up. I think I've been just talking about it too much. My Facebook is filled with pro-israel propaganda now. Really? I am not joking. Like all the all the influencers that are pro-Israel, I'm getting hit with them, and they're getting ratioed.

unknown 32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

So, you know, it's it's just I you know, I think it's so far removed from what the general public actually want. Any of this, it's like simply hard. We want our tax dollars on us. Yes, yeah, not going overseas. How is it? It's not that hard to understand. Trump got elected because he said no new wars. Right, right. Well, that was one of the things that was one of many things that he said as soon as he's in office. The Democrats, though, in Congress right now are not doing a good job. Totally agree. You know why though? They're all like all warhawks. Yeah, they're all warhawks.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Oh, they're warhawks.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

I was gonna say they're all bought, but yeah, well, they're all bought by you know Raytheon and all these other companies that of course make a shitload of money when we go to war. Yeah, yeah. Um, I forgot, you know, so besides the you know, couple AI stocks, the biggest, you know, the other stocks that have done the best this year are of course military stocks. Or crypto, AI, and yeah, crypto. I'm glad, you know, I'm I'm I should say I'm upset I never bought into the whole Bitcoin thing and got it back in the day. But it at the same time, I'm glad I really never bought any of that shit. Because it at the end of the day, it just seems like looking back, it's like the NFTs and all this is like but the only reason we liked it is because again, we see that the system is working against us. We all I feel like people our age bought into the fact that this is like decentralized, like fuck fuck the government. They this is awesome, this is cool, but you know that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

That like that would be a reason why so many younger people and then we get scanned, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's that's how I that's now how I view social media. Like it was we all we all loved it at first. It was it was it was amazing. It was do you remember the internet 2010, 20 2008 to 2010, golden era? I mean Newgrounds.com. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

The fan it I mean, I mean funny stuff.com. We had it was it was a creative homer runner, Homer Star Runner or something like that? I didn't play that. There's so many, man.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

Like oh, I'll have to make a list of like my favorite flash games.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

There's so many movies. Armor games? Yes, definitely. Armor games is great. Uh no, now it's now you play uh now you play a game on your phone as just ads.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

We live in hell. The the internet is hell now. I actually and like dude, I'll be scrolling. The internet does stuff scrolling. Yeah, but I need to stop 100%. I need to get off. Do you know how often I delete these social media apps from my phone just to have to download them again because of what I do for work? Yeah, and then like I just play that game over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

So someone posted yesterday we're living in the worst timeline imaginable. We or it's the dumbest timeline imaginable.

SPEAKER_02 35:51

Yes, we we have to. This is this is my my plea to I mean, we need big change, like honestly. Like this I think when it comes to tech, we have to completely re-evaluate our relationship with it. Like somehow we have to just reframe how we in yeah, how we interact with this brick in our pocket that distracts us, keeps us disconnected. It's a biggest scam ever to suggest that we're all connected now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

But or more disconnected than ever.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

Yeah, yeah. It it it is it's a facade.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

We used to have to go somewhere to talk to people. Now people just sit at home on their phones by themselves.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Yeah. Work from home, biggest scam of all time.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

I hate it.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

Oh, I hate work from home.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

I hate it. I so we haven't had an office for the last couple months because we're because we're still finishing up the building. Um, and we, you know, we got out of the uh other lease because it was at the end of the lease, and it's been two months. And I, you know, I just bought a house, so I should be like, oh, this is so great. Thank you. And I was like, this sucks. I get like I could work from home for a day a week. That's it. Yeah. I need like something. Work from home Fridays are great. Yes, that's what we do.

SPEAKER_02 37:09

And yes, but no, like I I'm very passionate about like I think that we need to rethink how we build communities too. Like if we're building a community, like a plot of homes, we need I want to have sidewalks in in every single community. I want them to be in walking distance of parks and libraries, every single one. That just has to be how we do it now. Um, because I'm really passionate about third spaces being a thing that we create. I uh if you don't know what a third space is, a third space is a third place that you go to. Your first space is your home, your second space is your place of work, yep. And your third space is maybe it's a place in the community that you can go and meet friends.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Um Imagine the show friends, the coffee shop they go to.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Yeah, that that that's a great example.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

And there are so few of those spaces now. Think about like malls. Kids used to go hang out in malls.

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Malls was amazing.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Then they start kicking kids out of malls.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

I just went to ch I just drove past the Chesterfield mall. The mall's gone. It's gone. And I'm just like, the mall. I don't know. Sometimes you know, you get the the uh the nostalgic videos showing up of like you know the 2000s and like Blink 182 and Limp Biscuit and going to the mall and Xbox 360. And my Halo 3 custom games, Xbox 360 was the best. I think I think it'll go down as like the best console of all time. Definitely. I mean, it doesn't even I mean Call of Duty 4, Halo, I mean it it doesn't even compare, but now we're all I don't know. Even Halo now is a one you know, you can't there's no split screen. You can't have people come over to your house. Split screen's gone. No one plays split screen anymore.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

No one, but I want to. I know those are that like that that is those are some of my favorite like childhood, middle to high school memories, yeah, is hanging out having LAN parties and doing playing duck hunt or whatever other games we would download for for Halo. Um zombies. We uh oh wait, sorry, I didn't finish my thought on uh third spaces. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've eliminated second spaces too when it comes to work from home. We when we did work from like we know that it's an issue that we don't have third spaces, but we also do not have second spaces, and so that has to be addressed too. Yes, working from home can be great for some people, yeah for some people with um young kids, with young kids and less demanding jobs. Yeah, because for me, like my schedule is so busy right now. Yeah, and work from home is really challenging. Just hearing my I have a three and a half year old daughter, just hearing her in the house is is distracting, or or hearing like part of me is like, oh, I need to go help. Yep. Or um I could just go hang on with her for five minutes or or whatever. It's like you need a separation from home and work for sure. But also like think of think of all like all the all of the 22-year-olds that are getting out of college. Yep. They where they're in this uh hopefully they're they're like on campus somewhere if they're in college. I feel bad for that age of people right now. I have a lot to say about that, but I don't know if we have time. We don't have time. Um but they will leave college, struggle to find a job, like like crazy.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

And then when they do, a lot of them will work from home. Yep. And so they leave this great social place and get stuck in a room by themselves for until they find a new job or whatever. Yeah, yep. And think of all of just like the social cues they're missing out on. Yep. They how are like they aren't it's hard to date these days. Yeah. Uh because like where where are you meeting people?

SPEAKER_00 41:11

If not like Tommy, you're telling me I'm still trying to find a wife over here.

SPEAKER_02 41:15

I got lucky. I found mine when I was 15. Yeah. Uh I'm still working on this over here. Sorry, bud.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

I'm getting old. I just sounds like I just turned 33. I I need well, I you know, I moved to Rock Hill now, so I got a lot of places right around me, which is nice. But there's really when I think of a third space, I also think of the fact that you know, there's a lot of bars and stuff, but there's not like a hangout.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

Exactly. Exactly. There's a place you can go to buy booze. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's that's all I can really think of.

SPEAKER_00 41:49

And even aside from parks and libraries, coffee shops like Starbucks sucks to go into, Panera sucks to go into. Um, you know, besides like some local coffee shops. I don't know. Yeah, like the Italians used to do it best. They just sit on the sidewalk.

SPEAKER_02 42:05

That stoop kids, man. Yeah, like oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

They still do it. There's uh in Italy. They they have those white, do you know those shitty white chairs? Yeah, those ones you can. I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah, kick the leg off and break, just sit in a circle around there.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

Um there is a place in Coddleville, is it Frankie Martin's?

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah. That that's a great yeah. The whole outdoor area, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 42:30

Yeah, you can go that and and like you can like buy drinks and food. You don't have to, you can just go hang out. Yeah, we there was like they have like a bluey event where they were playing a bunch of bluey episodes on screen. And uh this is what is Bluey? What?

SPEAKER_00 42:44

What is Bluey? What is that?

SPEAKER_02 42:48

This is about to be a crazy clip.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

Should I know what this is?

SPEAKER_02 42:51

You know what Blueie is? No. Oh man, Bluey is a show. Blue is a it's a kid show. Oh, okay. But it's I don't have kids, that's what people without kids know what Bluey is. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 43:00

No, I know Miss Rachel only because she's been getting heat.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Dude, she has been getting heat. For good reason. Well, for bad Miss Rachel rocks.

SPEAKER_00 43:08

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Yes, yeah. Um, you should watch Bluey. You should watch an episode of Bluey.

SPEAKER_00 43:12

All right, I'll show I'll check it out.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

It's a kid's show, but it's uh it has a lot of lessons and and like moments that are for the for adults too. Um so like, you know, part of the episode might be about how a kid is struggling with his big feelings, but then it like the B plot is um Bluey's mom, they're animated dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That might help you. Okay. The B plot might be the mom doesn't feel like she's a good enough mom because um she raised her voice or something. Yeah, she's really struggling with that. Yeah. And so like it really hits home for for parents, especially, but uh adults in general. Like they'll interest. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

So um I was a big Rugrats fan.

unknown 43:59

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Come on, Tommy Little.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

Tommy Pickles. Tommy Tommy Pickles. That's his last name is Pickles.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Oh, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

It's not Littles. Trust me. I as Tommy said.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Oh, you're right. You're right. You're right. I love that. I just thought that he had a flathead. He always had the flathead screwdriver. So sick. He's that dude. He is him. That that show was amazing. Um, so this guy doesn't know what blue he is. That's crazy. I'm gonna have to look this up. I really don't have any young cousins either anymore. They're all like, so I don't, I don't, I don't hang out with anyone that would that would be watching that. Um okay, so amendment four is weird. Amendment five, we kind of talked about. I just want to hit real quick on amendment five. It um, you know, everyone's arguing that it's gonna bring larger businesses into the state. But what I can tell you is that small businesses don't want this because it's hiding the fact that and most people like the average uh person in Missouri doesn't pay a ton in state income tax to begin with. But what's gonna be leveraged is the fact that now, and they say that it's not gonna happen, but something like 60. I see numbers of like 25 or 65 percent of the the US or excuse me, Missouri's revenue comes from income tax, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:20

Two-thirds.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Right. And and that that's gonna have to be replaced. It's gonna be taxed on recording a podcast here. My marketing and your video, we're gonna have to tax our clients. And so we're gonna get taxed to go do anything.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

It's gonna add tax to services, which right now Missouri does not have. So if you're out of Missouri, I guess it's a thing in other places, but not here.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

We'd move I'd move my LLC to Illinois for for those reasons. Yeah, because imagine we have an extra 10%. Yeah, and you're signing a $10,000 marketing contract. Well, I can get you know the same deliverables for a thousand dollars less. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

And like we'd have to charge significantly more. It'll change everything about the state. It'll and it and it's only gonna hurt uh poor communities.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Like people who it hurts like it's something like 70% of it's that's what that's what my research has showed is that like so it's not good for 70% of the people. Right. The 30% of the richest, it's good for them. Obviously.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Happens to be the people who can do all of the pro marketing. Yes. So correct. Um, yeah, it it would be. They treat us like we're dumb. They do. Yeah. It's um, I mean, what a great plan to make uh make life so overwhelming that you can't pay attention to the news because you have to work two jobs, you got three kids, you got to take them to soccer practice, you then you're tired and you and you can't you didn't you can't even pay attention to the TV show you're watching because you're too exhausted. And then they gaslight us because they know that we're all feeling like that, that we're overwhelmed, that we can't pay attention to all of this.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

No one can. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

I'll might I'll step down off my soapbox here.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

But so I wanted to get your thoughts real quick. Uh I I had a horde whole thing on affordability. I think we can both agree that a lot needs to be done there. Um, you know, just you know, I always bring up the fact that in the, you know, pretty much up until 2000 um was really where we saw a big shift in, you know, really affordability and what a person can buy. Because of course, you know, 60s, 70s, and 80s, it, you know, one paycheck, one house, no medical debt.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Why why 2000 specifically?

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Uh how the housing detached entirely in the 2000s. But, you know, people don't don't like to hear me say this, but Reagan really fucked us. Um I think more people uh you know globalization, deunionization, uh, you know, going after unions, um, tax cuts for, of course, the rich, uh, deregulation did not help uh the average person. But of course, what it did help, again, in the if you look at like the wealth gap or just the wealth, right? How it's distributed, you there's great graphs online. And look at it by the decade, and you'll realize why we should all be very mad.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:15

I mean instead of cheering on Elon for being a trillionaire. Trickle down what? Like what around us is it's it's been that's that's the biggest lie of all time. So, anyways, off that, I you know, one thing I've liked in Congress, I've seen Rokana and I've seen Thomas Massey working together. And boys. Um I think, you know, obviously they have political differences, but what they have agreed upon, and I think most of us can agree upon, is the war or the military conflict or whatever it was. I just realized we've never been technically a war since World War II, apparently. It's always just been a military conflict or whatever they describe it as.

SPEAKER_02 48:57

Like hunger bombing kids across the ocean.

SPEAKER_00 49:00

Like you know, they're they're both against that in releasing the Epstein files.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

Well, they're both they're both in favor, yes. Or wait, against the war, in favor of releasing the world.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

Correct, yes, correct. And I don't know why there's not more people standing around them. It's still just them two for the best part. Yeah, like no one there's a wave. I you know, I hope this wave, people call it a blue wave, red wave, whatever. I don't care. There needs to be a wave of just people like thinking for themselves. Yeah. Because it it still seems like you just like Trump's the man. Why is he the man? And a lot of people just say, well, you know, the border, that's like the main thing. The border, and you know, they got uh dudes out of chicks' bathrooms. And I'm like, I'm like, we have bigger shit at play here.

SPEAKER_02 49:48

So many bigger things to worry about.

SPEAKER_00 49:50

It's like I just it's just interest. It's like, why are you still like that's why he Trump, I feel like, got elected though. Definitely, at the at least the first time, because we were all caught up in like this cancelization thing. I think that's why I voted for him in 2016 originally, because it was like the it the whole cancelization. Yes, definitely. And obviously that's turned out to be false.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

Uh do you listen to Andrew Calligan or Cowet? He does channel five.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Well, yeah, yeah. I've seen some of his stuff.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

Uh he's a great, great reporter. Um, he just did something with um a crazy, crazy panel. It was him, Hunter Biden, and Nick Fuentes.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Oh, channel five, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:37

Yeah. And one of the things that, and I'll preface all of this by saying, like, yeah, fuck Nick Fuentes. Like, I'm absolutely not in favor of this guy. But one thing he said that like it made me understand conservatives, I think, a bit more.

SPEAKER_00 50:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

Is that in 2016, the re like one in his view, one of the reasons that Trump did so well is that um because of cancel culture, because of that that environment, yeah, um people or and and like as the internet rose up, it was built by all the people who um like were in colleges and universities, and so they were they trended left. Yeah. And so when rural communities got on the internet, they stumbled into this place where they felt like they didn't belong. Yeah. Um and as someone who like I never lived in like a city city, but near-ish. So I've I've been I've been around a lot of different perspectives, more than if I lived in a rural town. Um, I grew up in Wright City, but it's kind of rural.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

I'd say that's fairly rural.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

Yeah, yeah. But I also grew up with the internet, and so like I knew uh I I knew how to navigate the internet, I knew like how to explore the world around me. Um anyway, so when conservatives like like from more rural communities got into the internet, they found this place that they didn't feel like they belonged. And then as time went on, they like because of cancel culture, a lot of conservative voices were silenced or um like deplatformed. And then like when um when Trump was removed from from Twitter, it was Twitter, right? Yep. Um, and you know, I I think in that moment maybe that was a good call, uh, just because of the like his I feel like we all voted on vibes, which is the dumbest way to vote.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

I read a comment and it's like the Republicans just voted on vibes, and I literally looked at it, it was like getting stared at in the mirror, and I'm like, I hate my life.

SPEAKER_02 52:42

Well you're like an idiot. If he if he when he was deplatformed, whether you agree with that or not, there are conservatives across the world who he said in uh in in that interview, who felt like that was an attack on them, yeah, and their ideals and their perspectives. True. And that's a big reason why he argued that he won again. And I think that there's a lot of truth to that. And so I think what um, and I we we can wrap it up here. Yep. Um I think that's a big reason why we need people in Congress in office who know how to talk to people who are very ideologically different than them, but can still humanize them. Yeah. Like I will never I'm not a trash talker. I'm not a I'm not a I don't speak negatively or poorly about people. Um because people will see those attacks, and if they see any part of themselves in the person you're attacking, they're they feel like you're attacking them. Yep, yep. And we as a people need to just move past that and treat everyone like we're human beings because we are. Yep. And I I think right now is the time for we the people to stand up and and demand those things. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

So before we get out, tell the people how to support you. If you have any last thoughts, words, what do you got?

SPEAKER_02 54:13

Uh, you can find us uh on anywhere on social media, Holstein for mo. Uh our website is holstein for mo.org, or you can just google Tommyholstein.com. That'll redirect you there. Uh my name is Tommy Holstein. I'm running for Congress in Missouri's third congressional district. I'm running to pass Medicare for all, invest in public education and our youth, take on big tech, AI, and data centers, and get corruption out of our politics, which includes but is not limited to overturning Citizens United and banning congressional stock trading um and restoring our government uh to a place where it works for for you and I, for people like us, the people.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

Citizens United is the like that's like kind of the I mean if that does like if that doesn't get overturned, it I don't I agree.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

I agree. One of the one of the most pressing issues of our time.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

Because the problem is people, real quick. Sorry, I know we gotta end. People, if you if you offer people money, a lot of people are gonna be like, okay. Check my FEC report. It is very hard, right? It is very hard for a person to say no to money and stick to their beliefs. Yeah. Because I would bet that not everyone that is now bought went in wanting to be bought.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

Absolutely. And it's like I would bet the majority wanted to do good or wanted to do certain things.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

That should be a study in and of itself. Yeah, it should. All right. That's all the time we have for today. Tommy, thank you for coming in. Get out there and vote. Support Tommy Holstein for Congressional District number three. August fourth. August fourth. All right, thank you. Bye bye.