Clint Brewer and Mayor Andy Ogles Analyze How Left and Right Are Finding Common Ground

Live from Music Row Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. –  host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer and Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles in studio to ponder how the left and right are beginning to find similarities as liberal policies prove too radical.

Leahy: In studio, Clint Brewer, the original all-star panelist, and Andy Ogles mayor of Maury County. That’s an interesting interview we just had with Naomi Wolf.

Ogles: I’ve never met her. And I’m sure Clint, we were talking offline that she was an advisor to Gore.

Leahy: In 2000.

Ogles: She was banned by Twitter. I’d love to meet her and shake her hand. It’s like a badge of honor. (Leahy laughs) Like, holy cow. We may not agree on a lot of issues, but kudos to her for having an opinion that kind of cuts across the grain.

Now, I will say trying to be objective is that I look at my friends on the left and how fervently they will defend the Constitution when it fits their narrative, and when they want to change policy, they’re more than willing to attack the Constitution and to label a breathing document and to throw it out the freaking window.

Brewer: The Bill of Rights is not an a la cart menu. You don’t get to pick and choose what you like.

Leahy: I think I’ll cite the Constitution on this argument and forget it on the other argument.

Brewer: Well, honestly, whenever I hear somebody in a public debate or to say I’m a strict Constitutionalist, I’m immediately suspicious of that person because I’m sure there’s something in there that they don’t want to uphold.

And that happens on both sides of the aisle. But the mayor’s point is well taken. These issues do cut across the grain. You look at her past stance on abortion and now talking about medical freedom, they don’t entirely reconcile.

Ogles: It’s like a game show. I’ll take the Second Amendment for 100, please. (Leahy laughs) It doesn’t work that way. It’s all one document. And, you know, and I would argue that there is no First Amendment without the Second Amendment. They go together, they go hand in hand.

Leahy: That’s interesting because, you know, during my week off, I did some reading on English kings, the Plantagenets after William the Conqueror, and then the Tutors and The War of Roses.

Brewer: Some light vacation reading, Mike?

Leahy: Well, for me, it’s light reading. It’s fun.

But what’s interesting about that is back to your point, you don’t have a First Amendment without a Second Amendment, you know, the right to bear arms. And throughout history, it’s always been about who has the power. Who has the military force?

And if the person wielding that military force is evil or corrupt, it’s bad news if they have superior forces. And if you look at that 500 year period of English history, sometimes the winner was a good King and sometimes not a good King. It’s what we have here right now in the world today.

Brewer: I don’t know that you can preserve democracy like what America attempts to do. You’re in and you’re out without having an armed citizenry.

Leahy: You’ve got to have an armed citizenry. No question about it.

Brewer: The government, whether it’s a party on the left or the party on the right, it has to know that people have the right to defend their homes and defend themselves. And I think it changes the way they do things over the decades.

Ogles: Our government operates at the consent of the governed, but there are folks on the left, especially that have forgotten that notion. I love the Constitution. I love our republic will defend the republic.

But at the same token, for those that are trying to divide this country, they need to understand something and that is the majority of the Fortune 500 corporations are now in the South and the Midwest.

The South and the Midwest don’t need the Northeast. We don’t need California. They can go to hell. We can do this without them. Now, I’m not advocating for any kind of sedition or anything like that.

But what I’m saying is we have an economic might here, and it’s time for the conservative state to stand together.

Leahy: I will tell you many California refugees who have arrived here in Tennessee will tell you California already is hell. (Laughter) That’s why they’re leaving, right?

Brewer: Yeah, of course, but now they’re going into all the hot chicken places and asking for gluten-free hot chicken. (Laughter)

Leahy: Did you just make that up or is that a thing?

Brewer: I imagine it’s happening somewhere.

Leahy: It probably is because this is one of the challenges, right? Tennessee is thriving because it is a bastion of freedom or aspires to be a bastion of freedom. We’ve got no state income tax.

And now one of the challenges is as all of these Californians come in, and it’s mostly Californians, at least here in Middle Tennessee, there are some from Illinois and New York and Connecticut you hear this complaint? Well, that’s not how we do it in California. (Whispers) Go back to California.

Brewer: I know I was in contact with a family through other circumstances, not related to work or professional pursuits, but they said, well, we haven’t left our home since March. I mean, the guidelines there.

I just think it’s open some people’s eyes up to the fact that there is a different way to live and you can come to states like Tennessee and enjoy it. Speaking of opening people’s eyes up. It’s very interesting to have a conversation with Naomi.

I never thought that Naomi Wolf would be a frequent guest on The Tennessee Star Report because, of course, she was, you know, Al Gore, whatever advisor. I don’t know what she advised him on. Maybe on how to dress or something like that.

Ogles: Did she also help invent the Internet?

Brewer: I was hoping to get a play-by-play on how the Internet was created. I do think it’s fascinating. I think it just shows that the pandemic has created some issues socially and from a governance standpoint that I think the mayor used the phrase off the air that they sort of cut across the grain. It’s like the streams are crossing.

Leahy: I think that’s right. It is. And when we have Naomi Wolf on, you see, that happening to a degree but not fully because there are some elements of I don’t know what you might call it. Left-wing theology that she finds hard to abandon, perhaps.

Brewer: I think ideology. I wouldn’t call it theology. You wouldn’t call theology?

Brewer: No. It suggests maybe it involves the divine.

Leahy: I think it’s their view. I use the word theology to describe their adherence to it. The fact to the contrary, that’s sort of funny and obviously reasoning.

Ogles: They’re very polarized right now. You have those on the left and those on the right. And I think most people would peg me on the right and she’s probably somewhere on the left. But this whole idea of medical freedom and the liberties and the shutdown, etcetera, those people that are, in the ‘middle’, those people that self identify as independence, they’re shifting right I think.

And this is just my personal opinion for this next cycle. And so you see, in Texas, we’re winning a county. A Republican Mayor in a blue county on the border of Texas.

Leahy: McAllen, Texas.

Ogles: Hidalgo County. Hillary won it by 40 points. And suddenly they now have a GOP Mayor. What? And so I think that’s the canary in the coal mine that some of these issues, whether it’s immigration reform or medical freedom or shutdowns, you could see not just in Tennessee, in Texas, but in Pennsylvania and across the country this red wave hit the country. I think you could see a sweep in the U.S. House.

Brewer: No, I think you’re right, mayor. The midterms are always dangerous for the party that just won the presidency. So already, historically, you’ve got a pretty big risk involved.

And President Biden came out I think it was last week and said, everybody wants us to move so fast on this progressive agenda, but our margins are pretty thin in both Houses. For his faults, he’s a realist when it comes to legislation. And I think he understands the challenges he’s up against.

Leahy: When he’s couchant.

Brewer: Yes, when he’s couchant. I think they’re doing a really good job of that White House of staying on message at least and having a lot of message discipline, which Biden is not known for.

Leahy: Apparently, part of that message discipline was not acknowledging D-Day.

Brewer: That wasn’t particularly good.

Leahy: So they missed that one. That is their message, though I suppose.

Ogles: Sometimes it’s not what you say, it’s what you don’t say. That’s deafening. When you see this administration not honoring those who served in such a monumental moment in history, not just for the U.S., but for Europe and the Pacific, that says a lot about this administration.

Leahy: Yes. And none of it good.

Listen to the full third hour here:

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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.