All Hands on Deck, Florida!

You may be asking: does America even have free and fair elections in GOP-gerrymandered hostage states like Florida? Under a wannabe-autocrat like Ron DeSantis, voting becomes a defiant fact check of the legitimacy of the GOP’s power. If they were truly effective at governing, why would they resort to gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression to maintain control?

By voting, even if your vote is illegally not counted, your presence casting the vote adds up, and together the exit polls can indicate whether the election was stolen. Look to Venezuela’s grassroots powerhouse effort to count votes before they were conveniently misplaced. In Venezuela, the voters proved the opposition leader Edmundo González, not Russian-backed dictator Nicolás Maduro, won the election. Several independent investigations confirmed their victory. While Maduro clings to power, voting remains a powerful fact check, confronting him with his own illegitimacy and galvanizing the movement to oust him. 

In Florida, two special elections will take place on April 1—to replace pedo Putin-puppet Matt Gaetz in the Congressional 1st District with Democratic challenger Gay Valimont, and to replace Zelenskyy co-extortionist Mike Waltz in the Congressional 6th District. Longtime public educator and champion of public schools Josh Weil stops by Gaslit Nation to discuss how you can help support his campaign to hold Elon Musk and MAGA accountable. Early voting is March 22nd to 29th. To phonebank for Josh Weil, check out these virtual phone get-out-the-vote events!

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Show Notes

Join a get-out-the-vote virtual phonebank for Josh Weil in Florida! https://www.mobilize.us/joshweilforcongressionaldistrict6/

Josh Weil for Congress https://joshweil.us/

How Venezuela’s opposition proved its election win: ‘A brilliant political move’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/10/gonzalez-proof-win-venezuela-election-vote-tally-maduro

The best freedom money can buy: How the Party of Reagan became the Party of Putin https://www.themarysue.com/the-best-freedom-money-can-buy-how-the-party-of-reagan-became-the-party-of-putin/

Transcript

Andrea Chalupa (00:09):

I am so excited to bring you this interview with public school teacher Josh Weil, who is running for Florida's six congressional district to replace Donald Trump's national security advisor, Mike Waltz, who was part of this incredibly disturbing meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office, which turned the world upside down United Europe, United Ukrainians. And I want to get your take on this, Josh. How did you feel about this ZELENSKY meeting and what are you hearing from voters in the field about it?

Josh Weil (00:51):

I mean, it was disgusting and disturbing on a number of levels. I think one of the first things that really stands out to us as Floridians is just watching Marco Rubio throughout it because this is someone that we have seen for so long and someone who is very image conscious and we've seen Trump's probably been one of the few people who've been able to throw him off his game. The only other exception would be the big Parkland town hall, and even then he stood firm. He just stood firm on the wrong side and watching him, because it's also wild, the idea that he might be the only adult in the room. He's not any of our favorite down here, but watching his reaction, his inability to kind of poker face or mask just, oh my God, I can't believe I'm complicit in this, as his spine was just completely slithering out of his body and hiding in the couch, which is a dangerous place to go when JD Vance is sitting next to you by the way. People in the room were cringing, telling you what you needed to know.

(01:54):

The second it goes back to a basic concept that I think all of us in politics, people in comedy and entertainment, people in news and journalism know, which is that you only punch up, there's nothing to gain or benefit from punching down from attacking people who are at a disadvantage to you, whether it's physically, whether it's economically, and to see Donald Trump try and bully, which is the only word for it, bully Zelensky as he stood firm and consistent and neutral voice to essentially forfeit his nation's sovereignty was disgusting. We as a superpower that the United States of America is there is nowhere for us to punch up. So our only business, the only time we should be going out and intervening is to protect the lives or the land or national sovereignty of other nations who are being bullied by other powers. That should be our role in foreign intervention and trying to, again, just bully there is no better term. To get this nation to surrender was disgusting. And it's also wild because I couldn't help thinking that this is the Republican party we're watching and I just kept hearing in my head over and over again, Mr. Gorbachev tear down that wall. The end of the USSR wasn't something that the Democrats accomplished that was their folk hero, Ronald Reagan, and to see Trump essentially trying to put that band back together just felt so surreal.

Andrea Chalupa (03:37):

I've talked a lot about how the party of Reagan became the party of Putin here on Gaslit Nation and a link to some of that in the show notes because it's a wild ride. What is your district, I mean that's a district that elected Mike Waltz who is firmly in the MAGA cult and doing Putin's bidding alongside Trump. So what is the district, what are you hearing from folks there on the ground, especially as Elon Musk is showing up to the White House and t-shirt, jeans, baseball cap, and he's proudly hoisting a chainsaw on the stage at CPAC where they're also Nazi salutes. So how is your district reacting to this massive purge of the government, this massive job loss across every state in our union, gleefully being carried out by Trump Musk and Project 2025.

Josh Weil (04:29):

So start will give you a little breakdown of our district. So it's 46% Republican, 27% Democrat, 27% independent or MPA. We've seen in recent elections, Republicans have far outperformed typically getting 75% of the MPAs or more, and one of the big reasons has just been lack of fundraising, lack of traction for candidates. This has been a badly neglected district from both the state party and the National Party over the last 10, 20 years. In terms of who's out here, it's 24.9%, age 65 and above, so we have over 183,000 seniors and the message of federal cuts, the message of streamlining and having a more efficient government is something that played well to them and it played well because they were seeking change. When you're dealing with people who are either low income or fixed income, which there is a tremendous amount of in this district, people were seeking economic relief. That's what they voted on.

(05:33):

There's a large number of people in this district who voted Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump because they needed things to be better than they were and it was just not happening. A lot of them are learning very quickly of actually how much was being done for them by the government as they're seeing freezes and shutdowns. We were in A VFW in county speaking to a large crowd and multiple veterans came up to me telling me, and this was within 48 hours of when they did the VA cuts firing thousands of doctors and nurses obviously with the clear intent of improving healthcare services as stated in the press release because there's no better way to improve healthcare services than by having fewer doctors and nurses. They were telling us that their had doctor's appointments, scheduled operations and so forth that were coming up had all been pushed back months and months and they were seeing it immediately.

(06:27):

There was a direct connection and they knew that what they were seeing was impacting them negatively and they were concerned and unhappy. There's a lot of people, the number one issue polling the number one issue we hear at doors and when we're out in the community is fear of cuts to social security, Medicaid and Medicare. 28% cuts to social security for people who are on a fixed income that isn't stretching far enough as it is, is brutal. It's going to be devastating to a large percentage of people living in this district. So they're seeing it and they're not happy. They're not happy because the results are negatively impacting them. They were told that there is all of this government waste and now they're feeling as if they were the government waste because the cuts are affecting them.

Andrea Chalupa (07:15):

Wow. And human beings are not government waste.

Josh Weil (07:17):

No. The Elon Musk message that the people who were receiving these services, he's cutting are the parasite class did not play well with all of the 65 plus Republicans in this district who had their healthcare cut, who lost access to telehealth, who have their social security benefits that by the way, they paid into their entire career without option. No one opts out of FICA money that came from their paychecks to be there for them in their later years now being taken from them or at risk of being taken from them in their later years. They don't appreciate being called parasites. These are the people who voted for it and there's a lot of buyer's remorse going on right now.

Andrea Chalupa (08:04):

Are you seeing torches and pitchforks yet?

Josh Weil (08:06):

We are seeing a lot of people saying that even if they think Trump's agenda is best for the country, they need someone to serve and represent them in this district because they understand that what's best overall isn't necessarily going to be best for Palatka or Daytona or Silver Springs. They have that because of Florida. They like DeSantis and I've had a number of them tell me that everything DeSantis does isn't best for their community and they're concerned about it even if they think it's the right thing overall. So they want representation and they need it more than ever because the foundation and infrastructure, this country is at risk even under the guise of state's rights and sending these things down to be state's responsibilities. I mean the state of Florida is the best argument you can make. Why state's rights for power is not explicitly granted in the constitution is a false argument.

Andrea Chalupa (09:10):

In what way?

Josh Weil (09:11):

In the way that we have housing regulations and a CFO or a former CFO and Jimmy Petronas because he's now running over in the other special election who made sure that the regulations had no teeth and that there was no accountability for what was happening in the housing market. Same thing with the insurance market. Allowing insurance companies to dip out before storms and drop coverage and then come back in with higher rates after allowing them to go well beyond six, nine months after hurricanes and damage hit before providing payouts on claims all the while boasting on social media about their record profits because record profits are just unpaid claims for them. Education a system that is at the bottom of the country in per student funding a system that's at the bottom of the country and teacher salaries and a system that's at the bottom of the country and reading and math scores, having federal standards raises all ships, raising the floor for everyone. You make sure that the worst possible outcome is still acceptable because every child receiving education is an American who deserves a free and appropriate public education. And the more we put off, the wider the range that we allow states to operate in, this is just basic statistics, 50%, if there's not standardization, 50% of them are going to be below average and the farther below average we allow them to drop. It's only American children and families who are suffering and it's our future that is going to be worse off for it.

Andrea Chalupa (10:48):

A hundred percent. So I hear your teacher background coming through. Tell us a bit about where did you come from? How did you get roped into running for congress?

Josh Weil (10:57):

So I've been a public educator for 13, 14 years now, predominantly in Title 1 schools working with at risk or post risk youth. I spent my first three years teaching in a juvenile detention center next two years in a residential mental health hospital. Areas where adolescents who still have a right and a need for education are unable to go out and access it. And so the local school districts come in and provide the standard curriculum, the courses for credit hours, everything that's necessary to keep them moving forward, keep them from falling behind and oftentimes trying to get them caught up from losses that have already happened the last three years I've been on a school leadership team at a Title 1 middle school, NASS County, more than 90% a full top grade title, one more than 90% of our children and families are in the lowest socioeconomic status bracket.

(11:48):

We have some of the highest rates in the state of housing and food insecurity in our district, in our community, and it's an all hands job because kids come to school for what they don't get at home and that's supposed to be history and math. And oftentimes what it is is mental health counseling and food and a safe place to report the things that are happening in their lives that shouldn't. Good luck getting a kid like that to focus on algebra if you don't handle those things first. And a large amount of what we deal with is trying to keep our kids safe and make sure that all of their needs are met so that way we can provide them an education and help them grow and succeed and be prepared for the next level when they leave us. And it's harder and harder every year because we lose allocations, we lose funding.

(12:37):

35% of our budget is federal supplemental funding for Title 1 or for students with special needs and disabilities, and that is what made me enter this race. I'd enter a race once before I formed a campaign. I ran for 18 months in a statewide race, ultimately suspending before ballots were finalized, but kind of made my way through the learning curve, made a lot of connections, knew how I'd want to build a campaign if I ever did this again. And when we saw after, in the days after Trump's election that their plan for handling the dissolution of the Federal Department of Education was to just take all the money that would be going and give it to the states to disconnecting it from the schools and giving it to the states where essentially the governor can redistribute it at his leisure, choose which schools he thinks should get it and which schools shouldn't, understand that that's endgame. That's going to absolutely cripple our public education across the state.

(13:33):

It's going to be massive school closures. It's going to result in schools being combined and condensed. Increases in class sizes from 18 to 25 going up to 40 or 50 because there is no way you can remove that federal supplemental funding, which is a much larger percent in Florida than in other states because our state funding is so low. There's no way when we're stretched Saran Wrapped than as it is that you can remove that and continue to even try to operate within the parameters we're working in today. And it was something that I felt needed to be messaged. It's not a partisan issue. It's not going to be that if you voted for Trump, your kid's school is fine and if you voted for Kamala that you're screwed. This is going to impact schools across the state. Broadband is not partisan.

Andrea Chalupa (14:22):

When is your election and how can people help you?

Josh Weil (14:26):

Our election is on April 1st. So April 1st. Here in Florida we have early voting going on from March 22nd through 29th and vote by mail continues to go out. So if anyone who lives in District six, which is a big old district that goes from Daytona Beach up to St. Augustine and then all the way over to Ocala, make sure that they know if they have not received a ballot in the mail yet, that means they are not receiving a ballot in the, because in Florida they clear a hundred percent of the vote by mail after every November election, so everyone was cleared and has to reregister. The deadline for that is March 16th if you would like to have a ballot come to your house. So you have about two weeks left, but everyone needs to reregister otherwise. Early voting is the 22nd through 29th and election day is April 1st.

(15:12):

We have a massive infrastructure for our volunteers. We get three to 400 volunteer requests online through our website and mobilize every day, the majority of which are from across the country. So please, phone banking, postcard, text banking. There are ways that you can reach out and inform voters and help them to know that there is an election coming up and what they need to do so their vote can be counted. You can go onto Josh Wheel us, J-O-S-H-W-I-L us to access all of that. You can also help contribute. We have built the largest congressional campaign in the history of the state of Florida at this point in terms of fundraising, in terms of the size of our staff and our team in terms of the field game and the number of doors that we knock on a daily basis. All of that takes money and we need to continue it rolling through to April 1st in order to turn out the vote.

(15:57):

All of our polling shows that we have this. We have a very unpopular Republican candidate on the other side. We have a very unhappy electorate on the inside and everything is lined up as long as we get them out to vote. So between now and April 1st, anything that you can do to help contact voters, support this campaign so we can contact voters, but getting out the voters is the number one concern because we take back this seat, we can take back the house this year, and that is about more than just stopping legislation like the bill in Congress that will dissolve the Federal Department of Education. It's about taking back chairmanship and majority on every committee. The reason Elon Musk is able to run wild right now throughout the federal government is because the House Oversight Committee is chaired by Republicans and they are not stopping him. We take back chairmanship of oversight. We put him in his place and we end the badness.

Andrea Chalupa (16:54):

We'll end it there. Thank you so much. Josh Weil for Congress.