All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show.
I am the Director of the Libertarian Institute, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and I've recorded more than 5,000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org.
We can also sign up for the podcast feed.
The full archive is also available at youtube.com slash scotthorton show.
Okay, guys, on the line, I've got John Dennis.
He's a Republican from San Francisco, and he's running against Nancy Pelosi for her house seat in California's 12th district.
John, welcome to the show.
How are you doing?
I'm doing well.
How are you?
I'm doing great.
It's been way too long since we've spoken.
Yeah, a long time, actually.
It's even longer since I've seen you.
Do you remember when we did that event in L.A.?
Yeah, back in, what, 2010.
So that's been quite a while.
Here we are in the future.
And here we are saying the same things we were saying back then.
Well, let's see about that.
So what is it that you have to say?
Why would you do such a thing as run as a Republican against Nancy Pelosi for the 12th district house seat in San Francisco there?
Well, I got to say, you know, when the first time I did it, I thought to myself out loud, I wonder what it'd be like for an anti-war Republican to run against Nancy Pelosi.
I wonder if that'd get any attention.
And sure enough, it did.
And I have to say, and I have to pay a little homage to the late, great Justin Raimondo.
Justin actually sort of did it first.
You know, in 1996, he ran against Nancy Pelosi as a Republican and clearly an anti-war one.
So I just thought she's, you know, she's really awful on issues like war.
I mean, clearly on, you know, on economic issues, she's on the other side of the universe for me.
But on matters where the left can be really helpful, like on foreign policy, like on war, like on civil liberties, like on privacy matters, Nancy Pelosi is a train wreck.
And it's worth, you know, constantly and continuously bringing up her record of failure in that area, in those areas.
Yeah.
Well, and you're in such a great position to do it as a Republican candidate who's clearly to her right on economics and other things.
You can talk about whatever you want, but outflanking her on the left and badly on issues like foreign policy and civil liberties and that kind of thing.
You ought to be able to severely humiliate her and peel, you know, left wing votes away from her, if not necessarily over to you, at least keep them home.
And why would any decent self-respecting leftist support this Democratic Party leader after her track record, which you might go into?
I know she's been the Speaker of the House for the majority of this century so far during 20 years of permanent war.
I'm sorry, you said a phrase with which I was unfamiliar.
You said decent self-respecting leftist.
Can you tell me what that is?
And the reason why I say that is just because, you know, one thing we could admire the old left about were issues like war and that they were sadly and amazingly muted during the Obama years with some great exceptions.
You know, we can point out great people like, you know, Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, a bunch of guys like that.
But, you know, they've been largely useless.
And so now, like when I see the left, you know, protesting war, I was like, great, where you guys been?
You know, it's 20, it's coming up on 20 years on Afghanistan.
Right.
And so, so, yeah.
So, yes, I would think so.
I mean, I try and I try and, you know, come across as what I think is just reasonable on issues of foreign policy.
And, you know, I have a friend on the left who's a big Bernie supporter and he hates Pelosi.
And I asked him why and he said, you know, I just find her so transactional.
And I just think that that's really why we end up in all these wars, because she's just really for the transaction and for chasing, you know, growing the state so that she could advance her own power.
And if that means a couple of wars and a couple of dead American kids and a bunch of money's wasted.
OK, fine.
But as long as she's in power, that's what matters.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right.
And, you know, this should be an all time notorious chapter in American history.
You know, like in a actual just one on one textbook, this should be a couple of paragraphs, at least that when the Democrats took control of the House and the Senate in the election of 2006, standing on Cindy Sheehan's back and the entire anti-Iraq war movement.
They came in at the beginning of 2007 and the first thing they did was acquiesce to the entire surge, finance the whole thing, pass a giant new appropriation.
And even though the people leaning further left in the party were against it and everybody had expected that they were going to try to do something, they came up with these meaningless little benchmarks that meant nothing.
And they compromised by specifically targeting the holdouts with bribes.
And they just said, whichever Democratic congressmen don't want to vote for this thing, we are just going to appropriate enough money to their districts until they give in.
And that was what even sticks.
It was just carrots here.
Here's millions of dollars.
We'll name a freeway after you.
You've got to vote for the war.
And that was how they did it.
Yeah, and I suppose the only I mean, the only redeeming thing is that about that whole episode is it just it just feels to me like it for people who are aware, it just pushed them more into sort of the anti-war camp.
I'm sorry, when you when you started talking about that, all I could think of on a separate matter was George Bush passing Medicare D in 2004.
You know, 2004, so 2003, whatever year was so that he could buy the 2004 election by making, you know, Florida a no brainer for him.
Right.
All the retirees down in Florida.
So it's obviously it's not just Nancy Pelosi doing it, not just the left, not just the Democrats.
The Republicans do it, too, you know, depending on the on the issue.
But but yeah, I mean, and what I should say about her, like because and this is ironic in a sense, because to her credit and she was not she was just the minority leader at the time, not the speaker, but she led the majority of House Democrats in opposing the war in Iraq and voting against the resolution authorizing it.
So for her to then turn around and sell out and fund it all along, then just is that much worse in a way, you know?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah.
Just doing it over and over and over again.
And, you know, this district made its voice known about about that.
I mean, Cindy Sheehan, you mentioned her.
She ran against Pelosi in 2008 and, you know, got the most votes, I think got the most votes as a percentage up until that time anybody's ever gotten against Pelosi.
And the district sort of, you know, made their made their voice known.
But ever since, like it's ever since the, you know, the Obama era, the antiwar left here has been muted, I think, frankly, shamed.
And and they should be.
They're trying to revive that.
You know, one of the guys from running against out here is a another, you know, another Bernie, Bernie socialist, who's probably my stiffest competition to get into the top two, which I can explain in a second.
And he's positioned himself.
And actually, you know, we've we and I've spoken about this.
We both agree on the Pelosi's failed history as a, you know, on foreign policy, on war matters.
So at least two of us are vocal about this issue in this race and feel like we're the ones who are representing the majority of San Francisco on matters of war and foreign policy.
Yeah.
Now, so talk about that top two things.
So it's not just a Republican primary and then a Democratic primary and then the general like it is in the other forty nine states.
Well, actually, I don't think we were the first ones to do it's got I think Louisiana also has this top two thing.
So so where you have what's called closed primaries where all the Republicans duke it out and whoever wins ends up on the on the on the ballot in the general election and the Democrats duke it out and their nominee ends up on the.
OK, so the primary system isn't really different.
It's just the general that has the top two.
Exactly.
Well, no, no, no, no, no.
It is different because what happens, I was describing the way it used to be or where it is normally another another.
OK, now we have what's called the open primary.
So everybody runs against everybody.
You've got Republicans, two Republicans, three Republicans, three Democrats, Libertarians and whoever the top two vote getters are are the only two who end up on the ballot in the general election in November.
So so, for example, in this race, you know, Nancy Pelosi incumbent, you know, secure she'll she'll get in to the top two.
She'll she'll be the highest vote getter.
So so the remaining other candidates in the race, if there are five of us on the ballot are vying for that second spot.
And in 2012 and 2014 and previous runs against Pelosi, I got into the top two.
But what's interesting about this race is California used to be sort of an afterthought in the whole primary electoral season.
But because because we were in June, but they moved the California moved its primary election up to March 3rd.
And so now, you know, especially for the left, we're the big prize.
So the Democrat turnout is going to be massive.
In the meantime, Republican registration has gone down.
So, you know, I've got some I got some I got some work to do here to make sure that I make it into the top two.
Yeah, well, so I think the thing to do, man, would be to.
Well, this probably won't work or anything.
But what I would do is I would go straight after the real leftists, the people to the left of the progressives who are principled enough that they're not really loyal to the Democratic Party in any way.
They hated Obama because they saw Obama as just another Hillary Clinton with a nice smile and whatever and didn't buy it.
You know, people like that and go after her hard core from the left on the wars as hard as you possibly can and presume that these people are with you and that they ought to support you, that, you know, no self-respect, assume they do respect themselves and talk about how no self-respecting leftist or progressive could possibly support this woman who's really just one half a click to the left of George W.
Bush on or Donald Trump on these issues and see if he can make some hay that way.
Because, you know, after all, how can she be to the right of a Republican who's running so hard her left on this issue?
It makes her look really bad.
You know, and you could attack her over the deficit and whatever, but that's what any Republican would do, you know?
Oh, totally.
No.
But let me tell you, I mean, I have no qualms about doing that.
This is not like I mean, I'm happy to do it.
And one of the reasons why I'm happy.
Well, first of all, I'm happy to do it just because it's my record.
I mean, you know, I've been talking about these issues, you know, for ten years.
You know, I stand on these things.
So so, you know, nothing's really changed for me.
But but what has changed and I think and I have to say it goes back to guys like you and guys like Ron Paul and all the people on the well, I don't know if you consider yourself on the right, but, you know, the antiwar Republicans who kept the ember alive during the dark years were the Republican Party, which is still a war party, but less so now.
I mean, I got to tell you, I don't know how you felt about it, but I was thrilled about Matt Gaetz's speech on the floor of the House in his position and how thoroughly and and and ferociously he defended his position as being antiwar.
What did you think about that?
Well, you know, actually, I didn't see that talk.
But from what I've, you know, heard of him, he started out as pretty typical Republican and has become, you know, much more antiwar and is adopting that as a strength and that he's from a military district.
And this really shows the tide turning.
I think it's just like with the Defend the Guard Act that are being introduced in states all around the country by Republicans.
This is and these are the roots, Scott, of the Republican Party.
I mean, you know, I mean, that's certainly the pre pre Buckley Republican Party.
And we, you know, I think we can turn back to, you know, there was a couple of years back and there's a guy by the name of John Nichols.
Do you know him from the nation?
Uh-huh.
Yeah, yeah.
He's a decent guy.
Yeah.
So I actually sent you an article that he wrote about me like 10 years ago, and he was saying that somebody like me is sort of the prototype of actually someone who a Republican who could do well in an urban race because of positions on war.
But one of the things that he brought up was that, you know, that I'm just sort of returning to the roots of the Republican Party because, you know, Robert Taft and Howard Buffett and a bunch of people choose Hiram Johnson from San Francisco, from San Francisco, from California, holds the distinction of being the Republican, the only person to ever to vote against the U.S. joining the League of Nations and the United Nations.
So, you know, this was the very wary of war Republican Party.
And I don't know.
I just I see I see the Republicans sort of returning to those roots.
The the the neocons are, you know, I think are on are on the outs.
And I think I hate to say it.
I know what your position is on him, but I think Trump's instincts are anti-war and they should be they should be thoroughly encouraged.
Yeah, well, yeah, I'm kind of split on that.
I mean, I think that he doesn't believe in the glorious destiny of the American empire and all that garbage, but he likes kicking butt and pretending to be a tough guy enough that it compensates for that.
And you look at his position on Israel and on Iran and in extending all of the wars, you know, he likes to say anti-war stuff because he knows that's what right wingers want to hear nowadays.
But he sure doesn't act like he means it at all.
But speaking of ferocity, I mean, look at look at I mean, I think he got maybe a rude awakening when he wanted to move those troops in Syria.
I mean, look at the response that he got.
And it like it took him took him it back.
You know, I mean, that was really I think that was an illuminating moment for for, you know, for Donald Trump.
But but what what I would say is that I think he's the first president in that I can recall who is persuadable on the war issue.
Yeah, no, I agree with that.
And look, if he had a decent staff, then he'd do fine.
And there's probably one good bench worth of anti-war right wingers who are credentialed enough that they really could be in those positions.
But he doesn't know their names and he's not ever going to hire him.
Well, it's funny because he's being hoisted on his John Bolton petard right now.
He didn't have to bring John Bolton into his government, but he did because that's what Sheldon Adelson wanted.
No, absolutely.
We're on this.
Absolutely.
It's so funny.
I think about just before he got that appointment, Tucker Carlson had him had Bolton on his show.
And if you go back and watch it, I mean, Tucker, I think, did everything he could to kneecap him to prevent him from getting into that position.
But I think here's a here's a fault of Trump.
I think Trump just likes to watch his people who are on TV and picks, you know, largely from from that group.
And the neocons have a way of getting on TV.
So that's how, you know, how we ended up with with him.
That's right.
So, yeah.
If he only read the national interest, then he would have a handful of guys.
But at the same time, he sees Doug McGregor on TV once a week, at least on the Carlson show, and he could have hired him instead of Bolton.
And then once he fired Bolton, instead of hiring his deputy, he could have brought in McGregor then.
But no.
Yeah, well, listen, I mean, you know more better than anybody that that faction, I mean, that whole, you know, the the the war party is powerful.
You know that.
And and they they have their roots in there.
And I think, you know, there's a great new article by Jacob Hilburn in The New Republic about that, where it's just even though there's only 70 of these guys, only ever worse.
It's still more than us.
And they own all the whatever think tanks.
There's still enough of them there that when a crisis breaks out, their voice rings out higher and louder than everybody else's.
And they control the narrative still.
Yeah, I mean, their resilience is is admirable.
We should make trading cards, by the way.
Remember how they made trading cards of the top guys in Iraq?
Yeah, that's a good idea.
Trading cards, the neocon trading card.
Yeah.
And they all have such sick quotes that you could put at the bottom, too.
You know, I mean, I know I'm preaching in the choir with you, but those guys just irritate the hell out of me.
And I and I just feel like, you know, I look at a guy like Bill Crystal, who's, you know, who's so quick to send these kids off to war.
You know, I grew up in a public housing project in Jersey City, and I can assure you, I've been, you know, been in fights and he just strikes me as the kind of guy I know for sure he's never given anybody a bloody nose.
I don't even think he's ever had one.
Yet he's so willing to send somebody else's kids off to die in a war and waste, you know, American American treasure.
It's just I just find those people.
I can't I'm around a lot of people in politics.
I have a really difficult time, you know, wanting or I would have a difficult time being around guys like him.
Yeah.
Well, I sure would like to see in the House of Representatives.
Ron Paul's chair has been empty for a while now, and we need somebody up there giving speeches, telling the truth.
Not really like Thomas Massey, but he's too nice.
He's got Ron Paul's same problem is he's just too friendly.
We need somebody up there who's a little bit more of a fighter.
But with that same position, you know.
Yeah, maybe like a snarky Ron Paul, at least I talked to Thomas, but Thomas was kind enough to endorse me in this race.
And we spoke about whenever it was just before that came out.
And he is the nicest guy.
And I just want him to be there forever.
And I just hope he doesn't get discouraged or distracted and move on to something else because we need forces like like him in office.
And and I have to tell you, I don't know what your position is on on on Rand, but I'm friendly with Rand.
I've got him coming out here in a couple of weeks.
And I feel better knowing that Rand has got got an audience with Trump that he can pick up the phone and call him and Trump will answer and he can talk to him about these issues.
What do you think about that?
Well, it's a funny irony, really.
I mean, I've always been very critical of Rand.
But I've always been very critical of him.
But it's irony that I mean, he I have to admit, they probably is the best senator in American history.
Well, at the same time, he falls so short so often and in exchange for nothing that just drives me absolutely crazy.
You know, he could have been the greatest leader on the opposition to the war in Yemen instead of ceding that all to Bernie Sanders.
And he didn't because he made an agreement with the Trump White House that, look, we got to we're going to keep doing Yemen, but we're going to get out of Syria and Afghanistan, OK?
And so he stayed out of it and then we stay in Syria and Afghanistan anyway.
You know, this kind of thing is so what good is his influence?
He he supposedly there's reporting that he had permission from Trump to meet with the Iranians in New York at the U.N. and try to negotiate a thing.
But then Trump undercut him and let Lindsey Graham know all about it, who leaked it and ruined it.
And then Ellen Trump denounced the Ayatollah on the same day the meeting was supposed to happen just to make sure to ruin the whole thing.
So.
I don't know, man, I think Rand is a great example of the people who still hold out hope for Trump getting their chain jerked constantly, you know?
Yeah.
Unfortunately.
Well, so here's sort of my look.
I don't want to be be a reflexive defender of Rand.
And I'll you know, we'll get into these issues in depth in a couple of weeks.
But because we'll spend some time together.
But, you know, one of the things that the big fight, what I think is happening has become evident with Trump in Washington is it's just he's he is fighting people call the deep state.
He's really fighting the intelligence agencies.
I mean, that's what this is all about, the out of control, you know, intelligence apparatus.
And and I think I think that's a big enough fight.
You know, it's not a big enough fight, but it's a fight that takes up a lot of cycles and a lot of energy.
And so, you know, this is sort of I have to say I am a little maybe a little Pollyanna about this and maybe a little too optimistic.
But I think that that's what's happening, that he's his energies are so caught up in fighting this fight and winning this fight that if he should manage to get a reformation, because you're not going to get rid of the intelligence agencies, of course.
But if you get a reformation of them, then he can take on some of these larger issues like, you know, the endless wars of a job.
One is tell the truth.
Otherwise, what's wrong with the intelligence agencies?
You know what?
Oh, they accidentally made a mistake or two or something.
I mean, so if you're not leading with this is what they claim, but this is the reality, then not going to get anywhere anyway.
So I don't know.
Although, you know what?
He's a senator and I'm made.
So what the hell do I know?
I don't know.
Well, that's just it.
You know, it's always it's always different when you get in there and and you've got to make that make decisions, neither which are neither which are good.
And again, I don't know the specifics.
I will get, you know, get a little bit of the inside dope on that when when we chat.
But it's it's tough.
I know that he's going to talk on the phone a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago.
And some of this came up.
And I can assure you he was thrilled that John Bolton was gone.
There was no there was no shortage there.
And so, in other words, I mean, I know he's still committed to the same things.
It's just a question of, you know, how to get it done in the face of the you know, of the you know, the war war party in Washington.
I think that's really the tricky bit of business.
And that's why, you know, when people ask me, well, would you know, as a congressman, you know, what are you going to be able to do?
How can you stop the wars by yourself?
And how can you, you know, get, you know, get control of, you know, out of control spending?
And how do you get to audit the Fed and all those things?
And the truth is, you can't.
You're frequently left with tricky, tricky decisions.
But when I see guys like, you know, like Massey trying to navigate it and actually succeeding fairly, you know, fairly well, and Ron navigating it and staying true to principle, you know, you know, I hope I hope I get into a position where I can actually be be in there and lead and show, you know, continue that, you know, continue that example.
Because because ultimately, if you know, that's that's the only way that we're going to actually have any success on any of these issues, whether it ranges whether it's, you know, federal spending, federal growth or, you know, or foreign policy.
Yeah.
Well, I think it's definitely worth the effort.
And, you know, I'm not much of an electoral politics type myself.
But the reality is that at the end of the day, they can only ever steal an election by a couple of percentage points that if the people turn out and vote, they will have their way if it's what they insist upon.
This is the guy we want.
This is the lady we want.
This is what we want an end to.
And we want it now.
Then they'll get what they want.
As Ron Paul says, even in the Soviet Union, in a totalitarian dictatorship with one guy on the ballot at the end of the day, when the people said enough already, the thing just disappeared.
Completely just fell apart right in front of all of their eyes just because they refused to go along with it anymore.
So, you know, I don't know what it's going to take for the people of San Francisco to vote Republican, but sounds like you got what they ought to be buying.
You would.
I hope so.
I mean, you know, and I hope, by the way, that we never get to the point where, you know, where we are and I don't mean we're where the Soviet Union got that.
But I mean, you know, if we just keep if we keep going in this direction, Scott, with, you know, people pretend that it's, you know, it's just the federal debt, which is.
You know, enormous and clearly out of control, but, you know, going back to, you know, to the monetary policy thing, you know, we are we as a country are facing a staggering amount of debt across the board in every sector, corporate debt, municipal, state debt, credit cards, student loans, car loans.
I mean, every the amount of debt that this country is carrying right now is what could bring people to their knees.
And so I suppose we should be careful what we wish for.
But that could be the you know, that could be the thing that triggers a massive amount of change, because if we get a correction with the amount of debt that we're carrying right now, it could get hairy and it could get uncomfortable for people.
And maybe that'll that'll that'll shine some light on our practices and people will want to go in a different direction.
Yeah.
Well, you know, speaking of which, it seems like in a town like that, with that many people who are that wealthy, because you have to be to even live in San Francisco and and this many CEOs where some of them have got to lean a little bit gold standard on economics and stuff like that and maybe want to support their local Republican Party in a way that could make a substantial difference.
Well, you know, the little bit of good news I can tell you is that after decades of going in decline, I became a say, I don't know if you know, I'm the chairman of the San Francisco Republican Party now.
I became chairman in the middle of last year in July of last year.
And, you know, happy to say that the Republican Party registration has had a tick up.
And we've been in a decline for like six decades.
So I think I think it's I think it's some of that.
I think people are concerned about the macro issues, you know, in the federal, the federal issues on the one hand.
On the other hand, I think a lot of people care about potholes, right?
They care about the local issues.
And we have a, you know, a perfect record of of almost tragedy of what's happened, how Democrats have run San Francisco and people sleeping on the streets, you know, in the central parts of town, you know, using them as toilets, shooting up, you know, used hypodermic needles, you know, all over all over the grounds.
And, you know, it's a you know, it's not a pretty record for the Democrats.
So I think, you know, a couple a number of these things are finally starting to push people to take a second second look at an alternative in San Francisco.
And I hope to keep that momentum going, because what one thing I think is important is that momentum going, because what one thing I know for sure is that the one party rule thing just ain't working, not working in California.
And it isn't working in San Francisco.
Yeah, well, in the homeless crisis, of course, goes right back to the funny money.
But this is such a problem to write is I don't know whose famous quote it was about all the destructive effects of inflation.
But then only one in ten thousand men understand the forces at work and why it is the way it is.
And that's why when the bubbles burst, all these people commit suicide when their business goes bankrupt because they blame themselves for their terrible failure when really it's all the central bank's fault.
And then the same thing with people all living on the streets because they can't possibly afford.
And Austin is nothing like San Francisco.
But in Austin, you can't get even an apartment for less than a grand.
I mean, it's you don't have to be a bum to be homeless nowadays, especially in a place like San Francisco.
And and yet how do you get people to understand that?
Yeah, this is Richard Nixon's fault.
Well, LBJ's first and then Nixon, you know.
Yeah, the problem this guy to get that problem together.
So it goes back and back.
Right.
I mean, you could go back to 1913.
But I mean, yeah.
So so you throw in, you know, a central banking system, a fiat money system, which is aggressively anti, you know, against, you know, poor people and puts enormous pressure on them.
And then you combine that with, you know, the various industrial complex.
Should we have an homeless industrial complex here that makes tons of money by keeping people homeless?
And then you throw in, you know, a, you know, sort of a, you know, a controlled construction, even though the demand is there for more housing.
The Democrats are controlling that for their advantage, various advantages.
I've been I'm a developer, so I've been in the middle of all that.
And you throw all of these things.
You know, we have disemployment by things like minimum wages and restrictions and taxes for all sorts of different things that get, you know, that make it expensive to employ people and people on.
Oh, and, you know, illegal immigration.
I'm sorry to say, but, you know, lots of people flooding in from, you know, from, you know, from outside the country.
And you have a you have a lot of pressure put on people on the margins and it forces them out on the streets.
And so San Francisco's answer is, of course, is to, you know, just let you just choose to leave them there and let them languish on the sidewalk.
And I always find it interesting that, you know, that like particularly the Bernie side of the party, but really the entire party, Democrat Party, is so so concerned about wealth disparity.
And here we have the most Democrat city in America, large one anyway.
And you have the most billionaires per capita anywhere in the world living in San Francisco and the highest number of homeless people per capita anywhere in America.
Seems to always be the case that the thing that they that they that they rail about is what they cost.
All right.
Well, good luck to you in your campaign.
I really appreciate your time on the show, John.
Tell people your website and stuff like that real quick, would you?
John Dennis dot com at real John Dennis on Twitter.
Appreciate it, Scott.
All right.
Thanks very much.
John Dennis, everybody.
The Scott Horton Show, Antiwar Radio, can be heard on KPFK 90.7 FM in L.A.
APS Radio dot com, Antiwar dot com, Scott Horton dot org and Libertarian Institute dot org.
