More reaction to Charlotte's election (11-05-2025--Hour2)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all of the links, become a patron, go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. All Right, so I think I might just start here with a lot of messages. We were talking in the first hour about the Charlotte City Council election going about as I thought it would. Democrats have sent the message that they are not only happy with the governance of the city, returning all of the incumbents back into office and tossing out one of the only two Republicans on the city Council, turning District six into a Democrat district. And maybe that flips back in the next cycle, but it will eventually go blue. Those are the trends. And what the message that I have received loud and clear for years is that Democrats prefer there be zero Republicans partaking in or participating in any of the local government decisions. Thank you for helping to build the city. Now get the hell out. That's the message I got. I got that message in Ashville. I get the message here. It's pretty clear because it's not just city council representation where you can go to a representative and ask for their help and they will look at you as a constituent, not as an enemy. Right. You also don't ever get appointments. If you want to volunteer for one of these city council committees or something, you don't get put into these positions. You are not allowed to participate because you're not of the right political party. So they don't want any input any longer from any Republicans. That's their choice, right. They've won control of the city, they did so several years ago, and they are just now locking it down. Message received. I received the message loud and clear. All right, So now I'll go. Randall is called back. We'll see if his phone is working. Now, Hello Randall, Yes, sir, how you doing. Hey? I'm all right, what's up? Well, first off, I want to let you know this. The Republican Party in America is a cherished party and we love the Republican Party. Who's we wait? Who's we? Wait? Randall? Who is we in that statement? Okay? Can I let me finishing. You'll find out who we is now. I'm asking you right now because I need to go into the rest of your statement with an understanding of who you're speaking for. The American people. Okay, So the American people cherish the Republican Party, is what. You're saying, cherish the Republican Party. I would disagree with that, but go ahead, okay. So this is a repudiation against MAGA. See, one thing that the Republican. Party has done is let MAGA overrun that common sense, uh, the common sense of a constitution, the common sense of debate, the common sense of America. So this is exactly what has happened. So hopefully it's not up. Let me finish. Hopefully the Republican Party, those candidates that declare themselves as Republicans will shave themselves of the MAGA nonsense that Trump has brought. Because you already know Dick Cheney passed away a great statesman. Uh, Dick Cheney was a great statesman. He was he served our country. That's what makes him a great statesman. Anybody that served our country in the military uniform or not a great statesman to me, I mean to you, maybe not. No, that's definitely not my definition. Okay. But the thing about it is this, this is a repudiation against MAGA. And I think, what's his name, Tom McCarry, whatever his name is, he said this is a trump lash. That was Edwin Peacock. That was Edwin Peacock that. Said, yeah, thank you, thank you for getting that right for me, Peacock. And that's exactly what it is. And as long as those folks who claim to be Republicans against you know, Republicans have never been against feeding people or making sure that people had food. They're still not against anything like that. They're still not MAGA. But Maga is. Yeah, you're right, You're right. True Republicans are not. But Maga is so. Are you so? Randall? Are you wait? All right? Randall? So I want to I want to try. I guess I've seen this. I've seen this faulty argument being articulate it. No, you have it, No, you have it. How do you know what I've seen? Randall? No, you have it? How do you know what I've seen? You haven't how do you know how do you know what I have seen? Randall? Let's use some logic here, because you're. Trying to spew MAGA propaganda. No, Randall, I was about to spew your dumb ass argument because I've seen it being made over the last twenty four hours. Wow yeah, wow what that's not? That's not responsive? But yeah. So your argument is that this is a quote Trump backlash because of the shutdown, Absolutely right, and you're using it. Listen, not because not because of some specific Listen, man, when did mask police officers come out and raid cities? When did that happen before MAGA came? When did that happen? When did ice enforcement? Ice enforcement's been going on for a while. Targeted enforcement of all law enforcement agencies has been going on for a long time, and they sometimes wear masks when they're dealing with cartel operations. I am well, you asked me a question because you were ignorant of the answer of the information, so I was providing it to you. Randall. If that's your name, Randall, please I would just ask you to argue in good faith. If you're going to ask a question, no, you're not. If you're going to ask a question, and feign ignorance of something. I'm going to then respond and give you the information. You don't then get to say that I'm not right when you don't know. You just asked a question which would indicate you don't know the answer. When I give you the answer, you then say that's not true. But you don't have an explanation for. Why get to your point. I've made my point already is that your argument is absurd. All what you have been saying is absurd. If you think Randal Randall, stop, if you think, if you think that the long term trend that I just outlined over the course of the last you don't even want to hear it. You just don't even want to hear it. So what's even worse is that you are ignorant, but then you refuse to accept any information that might run counter to your belief. And there's a word for that. It's called bigot That's called bigotry. That's what you are. That's how you're behaving. You are not allowing any information to be uttered because you don't want your prior conceived ideas to be challenged. And we all know unchallenged ideas are very easy to hold So when I challenge you on the idea, as I went over in the last hour, the long term trajectory of the City of Charlotte electoral makeup has been going this direction for twenty years, that predates MAGA. And I know that in the leftist brain everything is viewed through the prism of Donald Trump. I do not do that. I am able to discern local races from Donald Trump. This election had nothing to do with Donald Trump, and I would submit that Edwin Peacock making a reference to Trump is simply offloading responsibility. He is simply trying to find somebody else to blame. He wants to make it about Trump, So it's not about him, and it is it is about him. He Candidates matter. The candidate that you run matters win. Some merl c ys not a great candidate, perfectly lovely woman was a decent lieutenant governor from all that I understand, But as far as a campaigner, as a candidate go goes, she was not. Fantastic candidates matter. There hasn't been a Republican elected at large in like a decade, and so this idea that he was going to somehow knock off one of the four incumbents that have all that were all backed by the Black political caucus, which is the shot caller now in Charlotte. Now you may not know that, but I know that. That's how they got through the Democrat primary. That's how they got on the ball. They were recruited by various organizations. There's an entire network of candidate recruitment that occurs inside the Democrat Party. They're the shot callers. You're not going to knock off one of the four incumbent Democrats as a you know, white male Republican at large. Look, coach Joe, white, white male Democrat. He told me twenty years ago, he said, I am a dying breed. I am a white male Democrat elected at large. And he was the last. Okay, he was the last. I can read the trends. That is not maga. That is the voting preferences of Democrats, and we're seeing it in Charlotte. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. Let me address Randall's argument that he was trying to make but couldn't make. But I know what it was going to be because I've seen the argument about the shutdown. Andrew Desiderio, senior reporter for punch Bowl News last night, sent out the following message, there are now more than a dozen Senate Democrats engaging with Republicans on reopening the government. According to senators aids familiar with the matter, new signs of optimism after Democrat lunch, as the shutdown is said to become the longest ever now. At that lunch, Chuck Schumer reportedly told Democrats that they had to wait until after the elections to reopen the government because they were afraid their base would not show up in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City. According to US Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, a Republican who said last week Dick Durbin wanted to break with Democrats and reopen the government and Schumer told him no. See, the Democrat strategy has been Hamas's strategy. I made this point a couple weeks ago. It is to use your own citizens in order to get leverage on your opponent in the pr battle space. That's what they did. And now you got Trump out there saying to Republicans at a meeting I think this morning that they need to get rid of the filibuster, which is just the stupidest thing. You're going to get rid of the filibuster and then you're going to lose control in twenty six Trump only cares about being able to do what he wants to be able to do, and it doesn't really matter. I guess it doesn't matter if these our long term results. Everything he has done can be undone because it's not legislation. So I understand the impulse. Democrats have been advocating it. When they're out of power or sorry, in power, they advocate for the abolition of the filibuster. That's what they've been telling Republicans they should do. To reopen the government, go ahead and nuke the filibuster. Then knowing that if they take back control then they will enact well some of the things they've said in the past. They've said, what green new deal, statehood for Washington, d c. And Puerto Rico, thus giving them another four seats in the US Senate permanent majority, and to pack the US Supreme Court, add more seats and pack it with more Democrat appointments. Right, that's what they have said. That's what they said they wanted to do. So unless you're going to blow up the filibuster and then somehow ram through legislation on simple majority votes that lock in the number of Supreme Court justices, lock in the number of states like wall off, all of these areas or whatever from Democrat malfeasans. Then it's just a terrible idea. You know, ask Harry Reid, Well you can't because he's dead. But you know, Harry Reid blew up the filibuster and then what happened. Trump gets in and he gets all of his Supreme Court picks right. So it doesn't always work out the way you think it's going to work out. Right. The American system is built on incrementalism. People who want radical changes might do so because they can't persuade. They're like, we got power, let's use it right now, and we're going to, you know, beat down everybody in our path. That's not that is that is not a long term model. Let me see here, not enough time to be fair to a call. David and Roberts. Stay on the line. I'll get you guys after the break. Let's see email here. I've got a ton of messages, Keith. I will echo Trump's words regarding if people are not happy in this country, then they are free to leave. Yeah, but they're not. See that's the problem. They are not leaving. They hate America, but they stay in order to destroy See that's the difference. So if you are not happy in Charlotte, then you are free to leave. Why complain? I did leave Charlotte. I am outside Charlotte city limits purposefully do not want to be inside city limits. I don't have to worry about the tax increases. I am right on the county line. I will be doing all of my shopping one county over, so I will I will be limiting the amount of money I spend in Charlotte. Why complain, Well, it's kind of what I do. Another email. You are clearly thrown off your game today. Calm down and recalibrate. See Keith, I think that would that would actually be meaningful if you weren't a dishonest broker. You see, you're not offering me any advice to make me better. You don't care if I'm calm or not. I feel like I'm actually pretty calm. I don't feel any different today than I usually do. But he did send this message when I was talking with Randall, So I don't know why you think I'm thrown off my game. I recognize what was happening in Charlotte years ago. 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I was just a a I'm an independent, but I vote Republican in the in the Charlotte area, and I just want to make a suggestion that I think what Republicans in Charlotte need to do is they need to reach out to the North Carolina Assembly and they need to talk to the state assembly members and let them know that if Republicans don't show up in force in Charlotte, then we're not going to win statewide elections. I mean, they need a good turnout of Republican voters in Charlotte. And if there's no reason to vote in Charlotte because you're a Republican and you know you have these at large seats and you have you know, it's all Democrat, then it's hard to get the turnout in Charlotte to come out. And I think the North Carolina Assembly should take a look at Charlotte and actually say, hey, let's get rid of the at large seats. Let's create districts so that everybody in the district has one representative and force that to happen in the city. And that's that's my only suggestion that everybody who's feeling like, hey, what do I do? You know, there's no place to run anymore, there's no place to go. You're either going to have to fight or you're going to have to get your your state to fight for you. And that's that's just my thoughts. I don't know what you think about that idea. No. I literally wrote one of my notes for the show today says, this means the only check on Charlotte is the Republican state government. And in Asheville there was a representative. He's now a state senator, I believe from Henderson County, but he was a he represented part of Asheville's name is Tim Moffatt, and he tried to and I think he did actually impose districts at the county level and they did the maps there and that got all sorts of backlash, although Democrats ended up winning all of the maps eventually after like two election cycles. And then he tried to do it in Ashville and they fought him. I think they sued and they won. So I don't know if they're allowed to, if there would be an appetite to do it, But yeah, that like the General Assembly, because look, all cities and counties are administrative units of the state. Okay, the state is the seminal authority, and so the state can you know, come in and do something like that in order to get Republicans some representation. Yeah, there's no at large in the state in our North Carolina state Congress and Senate, and so saying hey, we don't have at large state at large seats anymore, is that they're unconstitutional as far as representative not well, not necessarily they can call it unconstitutional, but you know, they can basically say this is this is We're not going to do this anymore. Well, the lieutenant governor votes in the case of a tie in the General Assembly, so in the Senate and he's elected, she's elected at large in the state. So yeah, it's just it's a model that is fine for very small towns, it's not a model that is fine for larger cities, and it should be abandoned. But I don't trust Democrats to draw the lines in Charlotte. So so there's that too. But no, it's you can petition the state General Assembly to try to do something about it. Will they I don't know, But to your point, there are let's see here, there are one hundred and three thousand roughly registered Republicans in Charlotte, one hundred and three thousand. There are two hundred and fifty nine thousand registered Democrats, so more than twice as many, and then unaffiliateds are two hundred and fifty one thousand. And I think the whole reason Ted Budd is a senator right now is because Charlotte did come out with a strong Republican vote. And again, if there's no reason to vote in Charlotte for I mean, and that's what they need to understand. And I'm only one voyage. Yeah, no, it's true though. Email and I can send an email to all the Republican state representatives and tell them, hey, this is what's happening, and if you don't do something you're going to lose the state. But if everybody who's listening to you and you've got a more powerful if you can bring them on your show and say, hey, why aren't we doing this because it's not fair for Republicans to not have any representation. And then the bigger reach would be to have Balentine just exit itself from the metalone. Oh I remember that idea. Yeah, they tried that like fifteen years ago. They were going to name themselves Providence. But yeah, that went nowhere in the General Assembly. But yeah, I've heard the idea, David, I appreciate the call. John On the email Regarding caller Randall, Randall says, Democrats winning in Democrats cities is a repudiation of MAGA. Republicans swept just about every office in Union County and several other counties surrounding Charlotte. So what were they repudiating? Right? That's a people People like to draw conclusions and make assertions that rely upon their prior assumptions and beliefs because it affirms them. And that's what Randall was doing with this mega repudiation. That's what Edwin Peacock was doing when he says it's a Trump backlash. There's no evidence of that. There's no evidence of that. You know, people talk about affordability as a motivating factor in some of these races, and that it is, don't get me wrong, But at the Charlotte City council level, it doesn't make sense. If that's the driving issue for you, affordability, why would you return the very same people who have made it unaffordable for you. No, there are just more Democrats. There are so many Democrats that you can't outvote them in a city wide race. And you don't have districts drawn to preserve safe seats for Republicans like you do Democrats. And that's just the nature of the maps. Now the point, to David's point, Union County has like the highest registered Republican voter base, and they turn out, and that's why they get a lot of attention from statewide Republicans. They need Union County Republicans to turn out in high numbers, and Mecklenberg Republicans do not turn out in high numbers because, to David's point, there are often not a lot of races they can vote in because their vote really doesn't matter if they even have a candidate. But in the even year elections, you got state lawmakers, you got a US Senate race, you got Congress, and so Republicans do turn out for that. So the General Assembly members their incentives are not necessarily aligned to try to take this fight up for Republicans when they know that the turning out of Republicans does occur in the even year elections. 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I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. I try to get to messages. I've got dozens of them here, but let me get Buffy on first. Hello, Buffy, welcome to the show. Hey, how are you doing today? Good? What's up? Well? I was listening and I heard the gentleman before me talking about how we're not stepping up as Republicans. I stepped up. I drove almost two and a half hours to vote yesterday. Why because I'm out of town and my vote counts okay, And I feel like, you know, a lot of people on X especially are saying, you know, we're not going to forget Arena. But we did. We forgot her. But I don't know who the we, Yeah, I don't know who the we would be in that scenario. The Republican Party, the people that we didn't step up, We didn't go out there, we didn't vote the way we should have. For this election. We didn't. We just didn't step up again, all right, So let me let me give you some numbers. There are one hundred and three thousand registered Republicans. You would have had to have gotten basic all of them to go out and vote only for Edwin Peacock and miss and Kim, the only two Republicans and no Democrats. In order for them to have won, every single you had to have you would have had to have gotten almost every single one of those Republicans. The Republicans are just at a structural disadvantage because there aren't Republican voters. And Charlotte, right, we absolutely are. So when you say they didn't step up, I mean the turnout. Was twenty, okay, we with the turnout in my districts alone. I was looking at the numbers. We didn't step up. What was then? What was the Republican turning? I'm driving right now, so I can't look at the numbers. But the turnout was not great. It never is. I've been a poll worker at my particular location, right, and it's very we have maybe. Twenty that's normal, yeah, but I mean, but that's that's. That's actually because it should be higher. Yeah, but like last last night, yesterday, there was twenty two percent turnout citywide, and it's sad. That's what I'm saying. First, for everybody to be online with all of the yeah, we're gonna go. Every okay, but Buffy, hang on, hang on, Buffy online is not real. And I understand. Okay, very frustrating, right, But so when you hear like unless you're going to go back and you're going to respond to all of the people you see on Twitter that say, don't forget about Arena Zarutska and then you're going to ask them specifically did you vote, and then find out how many of those people actually went out and voted, right, because they were there. There could be people that were outraged about the murder also but still went out and voted for Democrats. That's the true. Yeah, very frustrating. Yeah, I mean that's why I see in my. District, which I thought was very interesting. In my particular district, so many people voted against attack and yet overwhelmingly voted for bile out. Yeah. No, I said this to open the show up. Okay, you're voting. When we have such high crime, nothing's going to change when we're outraged about crime, and yet you're voting is so frustrating to me. I agree, it is frustrating. But here this is why I say, you have to accept the reality, which is what I said at the beginning of the show, that this is what Democrats want. They are satisfied with the current state of Charlotte. They prefer this. This is what they want. That's why they voted to return all of the incumbents and throw out the only two elected Republicans that were up for election. So like, this is what they want. Yeah, it's like. Nothing is ever gonna change. It change at this point. No, it probably won't, not in Charlotte, not for the better. I appreciate the call. I mean that's again like living in Realville, Like look at the results and we can be frustrated and we could be like this stinks, And I said, I am allowed to mourn what Charlotte was and to recognize that that is long gone and now we are, you know, world class quote unquote, big blue Democrat run city. That's what Charlotte is. And the people who moved to Charlotte and voted for the Democrats to run the city the way it's being run, they are happy with the way Charlotte is being run. We just have a different opinion and ours is not represented, nor will it ever be again in Charlotte. That's the reality, all right. That'll do it for this episod, So thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, so if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.