Representative Adam Smith

Mike Johnson is effectively shutting down the United States Congress rather than engaging.

And if we don't stand up to that, we're going to wake up and not have a constitutional republic anymore.

We're just going to have a president dictating everything.

So it's really crucial.

But you ask the question, so if this is having such a negative impact in all of these Republican areas, why do they continue to vote for the Republicans who are taking away their benefits?

because they think the Democrats are worse.

And there's not necessarily on health care, but on a range of other issues.

Number one, every time a Democrat shows up in one of these areas and tells people that they're voting against their own interests,

Do we not understand how arrogant that is?

You know, how presumptuous it is to say, oh, we know better what we know better than you do what's good for you.

And that type of elitist arrogance has really turned off a lot of people.

If you want to show up, people have an argument, say, look, we think health care is important.

Fine.

But to show up and say, hey, moron, why aren't you voting the way you should be voting?

People don't react to that.

well, unsurprisingly.

And second, too much of what Democrats did, in my view, over the course of the last 10 years, and certainly I experienced this in the Seattle King County area, is we decided, and I use we loosely because I was not part of this, but the broader sort of left side of the coalition decided that there's only one right way to think, there's only one right way to speak, and there's a whole list of issues where there is only one right position to have.

And if you don't think that way, if you don't speak that way, if you don't have that position on the issue, then you are a racist, bigoted, misogynist, ignorant, moron, homophobic, transphobic, awful, terrible, horrible person.

And how dare you not say Latinx just to give you one of a thousand different examples?

And it pissed people off.